Tangle of Thorns
by the author formerly known as
Summary: When Edward gets a mysterious disease, Bella's love for him & Jake is truly put to the test, Jasper realizes the full strength of la tua cantante, & everyone is shown how thin the line between human and vampire really is. b/e, b/jake post-Eclipse COMPLETE
1. Prologue

Hey folks, if you see any typos anywhere in this story, please do me the favour of pointing them out!

**Tangle of Thorns  
**_Prologue_

"_Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied_._ Look at this _tangle of thorns."

**S**he's pouting. "This is annoying. Do you really enjoy teasing me so?"

"You know I do."

Her lips are full and beautiful. Her hair is dark and thick and lustrous. She may not be the prettiest girl in the world, but to him she is brighter than the sun itself.

"So," he chuckles quietly, and he swipes his cold hands along her cheek, lips curving upwards as she's shivering not just from the ice in his touch, but from the shock of pleasure as well. She leans forward to kiss him, hitting his chin with her mouth as he turns his head slightly to the side. He smiles gently while she's making tiny noises of frustration.

He keeps on murmuring, "Your leg is all healed... planning to get more injuries any time soon?"

He's teasing her. They both know she's prepared to make a silly retort and to try and move the subject to nothing. To cut the words off and just to send her lips crashing into his. But suddenly the air is so still.

"Yes, actually." She's looking down at her hands, at the trees around that make the circular meadow, the waving grass, the sun above. His sparkling skin but never his eyes. "I am."

"Oh?" He arches a single, perfect eyebrow. "Where?"

And taking in a shaky breath she answers, "Wherever you plan to give it to me."

* * *

Life doesn't get anymore carefree than this. She wraps her arms around his waist and looks to him, eyes clear and full of love.

She says, "My three favorite words are beautiful, loving and loved. Because they describe..."

But his swooping, magical laugh cuts her off. It fills the air and sparkles around them. Just like he does. "How narcissist of you. They all describe yourself."

She knows she's flushing a little. "Do you think so?"

"You know I do."

But she quickly pushes herself on to the tips of her toes and kisses him.

"I was going to say that they all describe _you_, Edward."

* * *

"Bella, no."

They're in her bedroom. His face is a mask of command and depth. Eyes that bore through you. He's the most terrifying sight some people will ever see.

But she's known worse.

"Edward," she begins, and her voice is quiet, so quiet. This is happening too often. They both expect her to say one thing, but she changes her mind just as she's beginning. The words are not words either was prepared to hear. "Don't you want me?"

Crumpling face. Exhausted voice. "It hurts, Bella. And it's not as great as you think. Being a monster isn't fun."

"Don't you want me?"

"You know I do." Frustration is in his eyes as he kisses her forehead. "Goodnight."

"Aren't you staying?"

"Not tonight, Bella. Not tonight."

And he is gone faster than the wind blows past the trees outside. She stands quietly alone in her unlit bedroom for many minutes, and finally her feet pull her inexorably as near to him as they can, like they always do. She is standing at the window, where the light is as strong as it can be on a moonless night. Only the stars hear her whisper.

"Forgive me, Edward, if it's the most cliche thing I'll ever say. I want the world as you have it..." Tears slipping down flushed skin. Eyes that see the rain and the black sky but not the stars within it.

"I want to see what you see. I want to love what you love."

* * *

Moonlight tumbling through the leaves like the dripping, glowing claws of underwater beasts that live behind mermaid caves; moss and twisted limbs that reach forwards to grasp children from parents' arms. The night air is wet and the clouds above are dark. Every patter of rain against a soft rotting tree is footsteps approaching a quiet meeting, one that neither party could bear to be interrupted.

"It was instinct. You know I'd never hurt her on purpose. You understand, don't you? You must. It was instinct."

Three final words whispered so the human ear could never catch them amidst the noise. And pale faces, pale, pale faces, lighter than the moon and more beautiful than the stars.

"Of course I understand," a boy is saying. "Of course, Jasper. You know I do."

They both know perfectly well that he doesn't.

* * *

"I have a theory," she says. "About imprinting, and vampires."

She's the most beautiful woman in the world. Perhaps literally.

"Do you?" His voice is dry, sarcastic, and his fingers push lightly at the keys of the grand piano before him. Right now his mind has room only for a tiny, human girl and the music he never wants to stop.

"Don't be so rude, Edward. Listen to me."

He sighs. "Yes, your Majesty." And seeing the burning in her eyes, "Okay, okay. Sorry. What is it?"

"Well, remember... How Emmett said he had met two people who smelled to him like Bella does to you?" He nods and she continues. "I wonder... If he hadn't killed them. Do you think...?" She trails off with a question she needn't say aloud, because he hears it all anyways.

When he's silent, she prompts, "You care about Bella more than anything else in the world, don't you?"

"You know I do... It's true that Jake once described imprinting– to Bella, of course, he doesn't talk to me– as having 'gravity move.' Like the only thing important in the world is her after you see her." He smiles a little sadly. "Maybe you're right, Rose. Maybe _la tua cantante_ is like imprinting for us. If that's the case, it seems that vampires are a lot less likely to be happy eternally." He shrugs.

"Werewolves... They could easily kill their soulmate, but it's not their first instinct to do so... They don't want to tear the one person who could make them happy into little pieces."

* * *

The air is cold. The night is still. The giant house is creaking, moaning, empty of inhabitants but for one, and the single girl he holds dear. Bella Swan is glowing.

She's no longer a virgin.

"Mm. Edward," she says suddenly, rolling over to press her skin to his, face hovering inches above his smooth chest.

And as soon as she does two strong, cold arms are encasing her like iron fetters.

She's on her back.

"So, Bella," he breathes. "Do you still want to get married?"

She squirms. "Do _you _still want to get married?"

"You know I do." He sighs and puts his hand beneath her chin, sitting up suddenly, knocking her off balance. "I just don't want you doing this if its only to make me happy."

"It's not. We've been over this. I... Do you want to know the honest truth?"

"You haven't been telling me the truth already?" he jokes in a light voice, but she sees something else flashing in his eyes.

"Promise me you won't laugh," she murmurs, wrapping her arms around his neck, snuggling as close to him as is physically possible. He's cold where she's warm, and her skin does some unpleasant prickling, but she doesn't mind. She knows her face is bright red.

"You're blushing," he says in an even voice, but she hears the deep amusement hidden in his tone. "So." His hand slips down from her face and snakes around her back. "What's the deep dark secret this time?"

And she murmurs, "I want you to see me in my wedding dress," still looking down. "I want to look pretty for you."

He had promised he wouldn't laugh, but he does. "You already do."

* * *

She's shouting, screaming at him to leave.

"Bella, please!–"

"No! Just go! How could you do that? You know I didn't want to send him an invitation. You knew it would hurt him. What on earth possessed you–"

But she falters and stops. The only thing she hears is her tears hitting the wood floor just below her, her knees shifting and knocking against the ground. He hears so much more. Her beating heart, her arteries straining to handle the pressure her anger is causing. He hears a crackling in her lungs that means she's having a hard time breathing.

"I thought he deserved the choice," he murmurs quietly, and she replies in a cold cold tone, "Of course you did."

"Edward," she says, "He's gone. He left. Do you even care?"

He flinches against the accusation. "You know I do, Bella. I–"

"No. I don't know. Leave. Now."

She hears nothing. She doesn't look at him after she's said it. But she knows that he leaves. Continuing to look anywhere but the place he stood, she sees a flash of metal, and her fingers worry at the tiny wolf charm on her bracelet. She thinks of a real wolf, a lonely one, somewhere out there and far away, and of the cold, stone heart that keeps her from going to him.


	2. Chapter 1

**Tangle of Thorns  
**ejaculatedteabag.  
_Chapter 1_

_- - - - - - - - -_  
Bella Swan can hardly see a thing. Her eyes are swollen to the point of near-blindness. When she breathes, her lungs make rattling noises and she feels the blood rushing to her forehead when she tries to move. She hears and registers dimly the thick silence that surrounds her shaky breath. None of this can bother the sick girl; she knows that he, her lover, her love, her destiny, is there. His cold hands cool down her arm where they grip it.

As long as he's around, Bella Swan feels untouchable.

She feels his lips on hers, and knows that the kiss is accompanied by soft conversation, and tense voices. Someone is arguing nearby, but the gist of the debate, Bella has a hard time picking up. The next thing she knows, Edward's hands were no longer where they should be, and Bella fallsl into blackness.  
- - - - - - - - -

"If you kiss her, Edward, you'll get sick," Carlisle said softly, but his son didn't listen. He hadn't really thought that he would.

Edward replied, standing a little straighter, but with his hands still resting on Bella's arm, and his eyes never leaving her pale face, "I won't."

Charlie Swan watched worriedly from one corner of the room as Carlisle examined Bella and Edward stood protectively over her. Carlisle didn't need to look in his direction to hear the pulse in his veins and the heavy breath from his lungs.

_I know that, but Charlie doesn't_.

Of course Charlie didn't know. There was perhaps _too much_ he didn't know. Carlisle was so used to a life of secrecy now, so accustomed to the mechanics of leaving when someone came too close, to lying and hiding out when the sun shone too brightly that what was happening right now seemed a little odd to him. Since Bella Swan had entered their lives, things had never quite been the same. Carlisle found himself saying to Edward many times, "You can't do that", "You'll give us away", and "Do you _want_ to have to leave?" Once, every member of the family had taken equal precautions to protect their image; they had fallen into the easy routine of disguise; now disguise was harder. There was more to consider, more to worry about. Carlisle felt all the time, _this is it. We're caught, we're done for, _especially when he was around her friends, her family. Bella Swans' connection to the human reality. He was never right. Charlie didn't know.

How could Charlie Swan, police chief of a town the size of Forks, ever comprehend what was actually standing next to his daughter's bedside? Beautiful; strange; fiancé; dangerous. All of these words fit Edward so well. Sometimes Carlisle was in sheer awe that the man's instinct didn't have him packing Bella's things, sending her home to Arizona, and escaping as fast as he could himself.

"You'll get sick," he repeats in a firm tone.

After throwing his adopted father a final, stubborn glare, Edward loped gracefully from the room, with an air of dignity no human could achieve. Carlisle heard, but Charlie didn't, the front door to the Swan home slamming downstairs as he left.  
- - - - - - - - -

Washington was pulsing with illness. People were confined to their bed for weeks with a dreadful, burning fever, and they limped with dull cheeks for days after their recovery, pale and quiet. It was like their energy was completely drained, as if a virus was attacking anything in their veins that it came across, looking for something in particular. It never seemed to find it; the fever always wore off after two weeks.

Only one had died, an old, sickly lady with no one to care for her.

There was virtually no harm in the illness, not if you were fit to begin with. If your heart was beating and your blood pulsing and your skin soft, warm and glowing with health, you were fine.

For some reason anyone without these traits was assumed safe as well.  
- - - - - - - - -

Edward wasn't there when Carlisle left Bella's home, stepping into the rain outdoors, not bothering to shield himself from the cold spatters of water that fell around him and on him. Edward had faded somewhere into the darkness that was Fork's constant sky. He was gone from sight, but not from thought. He probably knew that Carlisle was thinking about him. He probably was furious, too, Carlisle thought, that he had been forced to leave her side... He was probably climbing back into Bella's room through the window. Carlisle's mouth turned up at the corners, and he opened the door to his car with a low, sweet whistle coming from his lips to meet the sound of the pattering rain.  
- - - - - - - - -

It was August 1st when Dr. Carlisle Cullen said to Charlie Swan, "She's been like this for about three or four days now, right? I wish we'd gotten back from camping sooner, Charlie, I'd have come in to check on her earlier... She should be better in about ten days, the fever hardly ever lasts for longer than two weeks... Hm? Yes, that's right, just a fever, she'll be weak, probably won't eat much, but keep trying to feed her regardless. Charlie," Carlisle added, and to the ears of the worried, distraught man whose eyes hadn't left his daughter's face in almost two hours, the words coming from his mouth sounded like those from an angel's. "Just call me. If anything happens, if her fever worsens at all, call and I'll come look at her. She'll get better. Be patient."

Charlie waited. He cooked soup which was more often than not horribly burnt or tastelessly undercooked. Carlisle had mentioned a time span of about two weeks. It seemed like years. There was an upside though: the disease was contagious; Charlie didn't see Edward Cullen once after that first day.

God knew he would already be seeing him enough in the future.  
- - - - - - - - -

He would have thought once that Edward had never before been so sad. But he had known worse. He had known Edward without Bella.

Emmett commented, "It's sad," eyeing vaguely the ivory keys and Edward's hands (ivory, too, it seemed) pushing at them.

"Yes." There were few things to hear from Edward these days. Emmett wanted to scream, "You're getting married in just a little over a week! Why the damn depression!"; but he knew why; and he knew that he could spare himself the embarrassment of saying it aloud. He wasn't usually ashamed to say anything out loud, to be thinking thoughts that seemed out of place. Emmett prided himself on speaking his mind, always, no matter what was happening within. But there were times when he was grateful to know that someone was there to hear, someone was there to understand, without his having to admit it through words.

Edward sighed. "I wrote it when I left her. I never finished it."

He flashed Emmett a grand smile, murmuring, "No one in the world is sad enough to completely compose a song this depressing."

_That's good_. Emmett watched a few moments more as Edward pressed his fingertips lightly onto the keys of the piano, before saying aloud, perhaps because he thought simply that Edward needed to hear it that way to make it more real, "She'll get better, you know. Only one person has lost their life because of this disease... and if another does, it won't be Bella Swan."  
- - - - - - - - -

Jasper was in a state of confusion. He watched as Edward moved through the house using only sluggish movements, and he wondered what was going on. This was not sadness. Jasper knew sadness. He knew emotion better than any person or vampire alive. But he didn't understand this. He couldn't.

Edward was caught somewhere within sadness, indifference, and a strange sense of exhaustion. Not a physical exhaustion, for vampires couldn't feel that, though Jasper would be able to sense it, were Edward to experience the feeling.

As a human, Jasper had always possessed a sort of charisma, a link with the mind of all people that had enabled him to read the lines around their eyes like the text of a page. Jasper could hear sadness or elation in a tone of voice that sounded plain to others. He could see frustration in the way someone moved their arm. And he had taught himself to learn to control it. He learned to talk in time with a person's breathing, to gradually slow his words so that they, subconsciously, would slow the movement of their lungs and calm down.

And so it was as a vampire. Jasper's perceptions of emotions was very much an empathetic thing; when a person suffering heartbreak walked by, he felt the sadness plunge briefly into him, and a person dancing for joy before him could make his lips turn up like nothing else; but the changing of emotions, the handling of them , was all very physical. Jasper saw pain and fiddled with the endorphin level in a person's bloodstream. He pushed chemicals through your veins to change how you were, but he needed only to look at you to know what you felt.

Edward felt mentally exhausted. Jasper wanted to warn someone, to reach out to his brother, but what could he say? Of all the members of his family, Jasper could honestly say that he knew Edward the least. His emotions always seemed to consist only of a vague detachment with only tinges of happiness or sadness. Jasper had known his family through the waves of feeling he felt coming off of them, and Edward...

But that had all changed when Bella came along. Jasper had never known Edward to feel so passionately about anything else. He had now returned to the land of eternal boredom and indifference, but with that twinge of fear and worry that Jasper associated to Bella's sickness.

Of all the members of his family, Jasper could honestly say that he knew Edward the least.

He didn't think that this would ever change.  
- - - - - - - - -

The wedding was in 9 days. 9 days exactly. Alice was bouncing on a stool in the kitchen of the Cullen home, and Bella watched a little worriedly as the tiny girl with her night-dark hair babbled incessantly, words falling from her lips like the rain from the sky. Her talk seemed never ending.

Edward was in the next room; Bella could hear the soft notes coming from the piano, and she wondered what was going on. He seemed so distant, so silent lately, that she didn't know how to react. Emmett was saying something to Edward, his voice low and calm. Bella heard only, "It's sad," and she knew Emmett spoke of the quiet, beautiful song he was playing. She strained to hear the rest of the conversation but picked up none of it.

Jasper, Alice and Rosalie sat around the kitchen island with her, Jasper watching Alice with intense affection, Alice talking like there was no tomorrow, and Rosalie rolling her eyes with blatant boredom.

Alice said, "We'll be in Paris, Jasper and I. Just for a few days, of course; there's a show I want to see..." She seemed almost a little defensive and wary as she said this, like the world was against her and her love of fashion, and her random flights to countries far and foreign. Alice said, "A big show. A good one; I'll bring pictures back with me," as if this could mend all the problems in the world.

Bella could only laugh. "It's okay Alice. Fashion comes first, I know."

Alice insisted, "That's not it!" Her eyes were excited as the subject of the wedding was switched on. "I'll be back in time for the wedding. Back a few days before, actually, just to make sure everything is running smoothly, you know.. We won't be gone for more than three or four days, actually. We're leaving the day after tomorrow." Alice said, "After the wedding, Jasper and I will go back to Paris for two days. One final show. I figure you and Edward will be honey mooning anyways or something." She shrugged casually. "Newly wed stuff."

And Jasper added with a grin, "Eating each other."

"Jasper!" Alice cried. "Don't say that! That's... That's..."

"So true," Rosalie said in a voice so bored that it bordered on completely uncaring, and having said this suddenly sat up. Rosalie was only too ready to change the subject. She fluffed up with pride. "I have a theory. I've already told Edward this one. About vampires. And imprinting. I think the way Bella smells to Edward is like a vampire's form of imprinting. If you can resist eating the person who smells better to you than anything else in the world, you will be eternally happy! You will have found your soul mate."

Bella watched Rosalie warily as she gave her epic little speech, letting a tiny smile twist at her lips when Rosalie's chin rose and her eyelashes fluttered at everyone else sitting around her. Her face was exultant; she was a shining pillar of glory. Bella realized a little tiredly that Rosalie was probably right. Her mind began to probe a little deeper into the theory, but she stopped when her head began to ache. This was the first time she had left her house since recovery from the fever, and she would admit that she still felt a little... woozy, for lack of better word.

Jasper's voice was unconcerned when he replied, "All humans smell the same to me. That theory can't be right. Not that I'm in the market for a soul mate." He smiled at Alice, who grinned back, face lighting up like a sunrise. "And," he added, clearing his throat, "What if two vampires like the smell of one person? Lots of people like the smell of... tacos, I'm sure. Or..." (Here Rosalie interjected, "And how many of those people, Jasper, are going to spend the rest of their lives with the taco?") Jasper continued, saying, "What if a girl vampire finds a human girl who smells best, but she's not a lesbian?"

Rosalie's stubborn glare told Bella that Jasper should back off, but she doubted for some reason that he would.

"Actually," Bella murmured, keeping her voice quiet, "Jake told me once–" she felt her stomach twist with the sound of his name and the image of his face that appeared suddenly before her eyes. Rosalie and Alice watched her intently, expressions unchanging. But she saw Jasper's eyes flash briefly, and knew that he had caught her sudden loss of sense and organization. He could feel the whirr of emotions happening within her. And Edward could probably hear as he processed it.

"He said," she kept going, arguing with her voice to stay even. "That imprinting wasn't necessarily romantic. He said only that the person you've imprinted upon becomes completely centrical to your life... It could be in a best friends sort of way. Or... a sisterly way, in the case of your non-lesbians."

Rosalie smiled triumphantly. But Jasper said, "They still smell all the same to me. I'm sure I'm not the only one who's like that." The tone of his voice told Bella that he wasn't sure as much as he was hoping.

Edward was behind her suddenly. He said in that quiet, blank voice she had heard so often over the past few weeks, "You would know. When you found the one."

Jasper said, "But–"

Edward cut him off. "Trust me," he said firmly. "You would know."  
- - - - - - - - -

Alice was gone. She was over the sea somewhere watching women with hipbones emerging like wooden triangles from their skin, walking down cold slabs of metal beneath lights that seemed to glare angrily upon them. Their eyelashes cast jagged shadows down their high and defined cheekbones.

Bella thought of Alice amongst the strange beauty of these girls, knowing that Alice was an even greater beauty. She yearned wildly to be a gorgeous, bizarre angel like Alice, to have strength and grace and that natural elusiveness her friend had. But part of her cringed from the cold, flinching instinctively towards the nearest warmth. Every animal part of Bella longed for Jake. Every gene within her that strove for survival screamed when she saw Edward or any of his siblings, or his parents. They would be her parents, too, in time. And Alice could be her sister, more than just a friend.

Bella felt like she had been split in half; these were the criteria of the new Bella: 1) Human, and wanting to stay that way. Feeling the sunshine on your skin, laughing freely and watching your children graduate sometime twenty years down the road. The knowledge that your hundred years were spent right.

2) Edward, and everything that he stood for; the longing and the comfort and the wild fear that sometimes controlled her in those times of peril.

Edward, and eternity.  
- - - - - - - - -

Esme padded silently through the house, passing the piano and letting her hand rest casually upon it. Leaving behind her the mahogany frame and the ivory keys, she drifted slowly towards the back of the room, where she stopped at the foot of the stairs, raising her eyes upward as if to a God. But the look on her face was not one of worship. Her mouth twisted and sent ripples of fear upwards to her eyes.

"Edward?"

Her son looked down at her vaguely from where he stood a landing above. His chest heaved and she heard how ragged his breath was. His face seemed almost to have collapsed upon itself, betraying every mask he had ever set up, or perhaps there was never a mask at all. Perhaps the Edward she saw every day was as real as the floor beneath her feet, and this one only an extension of the many different versions of him she had seen, the old, familiar Edward, and the new, strange ones she had been introduced to this past week.

His eyes were black, blacker than the darkest night.

He fell. Esme had never known a vampire's legs to give out beneath him, but she saw it now. Edward tumbled to the floor with so little grace that it frightened her. For a brief moment Esme felt like Alice, as if she could see, in the future, Edward's fall down the flight of stairs; her muscles tightened and she was prepared to lunge forward; but Edward fell no further than the spot where he stood. He crashed down exactly where he was. It was like watching an angel lose its wings.

That phrase struck in Esme's head as nothing more than a metaphor, a similar occurrence to what she was viewing. She didn't know it then, but she was right; she was seeing an immortal fall to the earth.


	3. Chapter 2

**Tangle of Thorns  
**_Chapter 2  
_

It had been Edward's idea, actually.

This was what Bella liked to tell herself. And– and it had! she told herself in fury. It was his idea! He tricked her into making her go along with it, as if she were the one who thought it up... As if she were the one who wanted to destroy his last true shred of moral purity.

* * *

Edward had told Jasper once: Your mind is a confusing place... images are frozen like photos; sounds and conversations are drowned out by an ever-running commentary on back-lighting... the things you see brighten up at times, like you were imagining how they would appear with flash. It's like viewing the world through a camera, Jasper. As if the world was meant to be a giant picture, as if you can't focus without a lens..

_And of course_, Edward had added with a smile, _there's Alice_. _Always Alice, somewhere in the background of all those thoughts and images_... _Not changed by imaginary focus, or lighting. It's just_... _her; only her_.

The greatest picture Jasper had ever taken, the one that he loved the most, was of Edward. Jasper, though he had lived with Edward for over 50 years, had never really felt like he knew him. He didn't get along with him the way he did any of the others. But he loved this photo. Jasper knew not whether it was a trick of lighting or whether his camera's focus had become momentarily broken- but the portrait had been created purely by accident, and with very little use of talent on Jasper's part.

It had been taken in the summer, at some place where the sun shone more than once every two months. The sun was bright, and Edward sparkled, one hand on his hip and the other at his side. Light glanced off the harsh, sharp angles of his face, illuminating the air around his head like a halo. Most of the picture was out of focus, but you could tell from the shapes of climbing vines and mossy rocks that Edward was in a garden. Things were dim, blurred for the most part, but with a clarity that was almost startling you could see his smile, his eyes, his tousled hair; and just behind Edward's head, to the left, a single blossom on a dying tree.

Jasper had never taken another that could match it's beauty, but he had tried, oh how he'd tried.

Casually he snapped a photo of the corner of the bed, thinking that the shadows the rumpled blankets cast looked like gaping jaws. Alice and Jasper had rented a hotel room when they had realized that they would need something to do in between fashion shows. It was a nice place to sit around and do absolutely nothing, no matter what the time of day.

Jasper fiddled a little with the focus, thinking to catch the jagged appearance of Alice's eyelashes but to get everything else blurry, the strange effect it would make– her golden eye and the lashes like pointed needles, and the rough outline of her night dark hair and her smooth skin. Her cell phone rang, and Alice moved abruptly just as Jasper snapped the image.

When he glanced on the screen all he could see was the edge of her jawbone and a knowing, impish grin.

* * *

If it was possible, (and clearly it was), Edward had a fever. His temperature was higher than a werewolf's. The bags under his eyes were darker than usual, and the eyes themselves were absolutely pitch black. He was in pain– "Pain where?"

"Everywhere," Edward answered Carlisle's question with a moan. "_Everywhere_. _Make it stop_."

Carlisle was at a loss. Edward's eyes were sensitive to light, and loud noises made him cringe and twist his face down into the pillows, covering his ears with his hands. Worried and frantic, Carlisle had hung blackout curtains over the windows, had expressly forbid any talking above a whisper, and advised everyone to walk as quietly as possible.

Four hundred years had taught him that vampires don't become ill, and here Edward was twisting in pain, burning a 108 fever and hardly able to suck in any air. The world had become a confusing place.

* * *

_You're trying to protect your virtue, aren't you? _**No, silly girl, I'm trying to protect yours, and you're making it...**

* * *

Carlisle's exact words were this: "Don't come home just yet, I can't be sure if it's contagious."

What Alice heard was this: static.

The words barely registered– she didn't need to hear Carlisle saying it, because she was already seeing it; over an ocean and cities and forests her vision glided until it stopped at their home in Forks. She saw Carlisle standing at the telephone talking to her, and dimly she heard the same words repeated only a few seconds later in real time. In the background the door to Edward's bedroom was open, and she saw him inside, tired, crumpled and struggling for air.

The vision snapped away and she heard her father saying, for the second time, "I just don't know what it is, and Esme would go insane with fear if another one of you got it. I'll let you know when it's safe to come back Alice, I promise."

The line went dead, and Alice sat quietly, straining herself to see what lie ahead for her brother, for her family. She saw tomorrow's weather (sunny, in Paris; rainy, in Forks) but her vision clouded over, becoming a dense fog that cleared to reveal the hotel room she sat in.

Worry seized her, but it was only a moment before Jasper was there, putting his arms around her, saying nothing, but telling her everything she needed to know at the same time.  
She gave in. Of course she gave in. Her breath was ragged. Her heart was pounding. Her skin was flushed.

* * *

"Edward," she mumbled, almost completely incoherent, "I think... We should probably..."

What was it she thought again? She had forgotten. His scent was intoxicating, billowing around her as he kissed her neck, her shoulder, her chin... Her resolve had faded fast with his touch.

He paused. "Bella," he prompted quietly, in a whisper so soft she almost couldn't hear it. "If you really don't want to do this, tell me."

She did. She did really want to. Something nagged at her mind, something that was supposed to be important but that slipped past her train of thought for the time being. She pressed her lips to his throat, and pulled him closer, and suddenly nothing was important, nothing but him, and her, and the private, peaceful night that stretched ahead of them.

* * *

Edward's fever was not going down, but it wasn't going up either. This wasn't to say that he was stable. On the contrary, while his temperature seemed constant, everything else was spiraling downward. He seemed to wheeze for breath, even when Carlisle told him soothingly, "don't bother, Edward, air's not that important, just rest," and his eyes were like black holes. He tossed, claiming always that he was tired, so tired, it would have been so much easier if he could just _sleep_.

He said he was exhausted, in a strange, ethereal tone, like so many patients Carlisle had seen in the past, but when he looked at the expression on his son's face, Carlisle wondered if that was because of the fever, or eight decades of walking without rest.

* * *

It was August 12th, and their wedding was tomorrow, but Edward probably didn't even know that.

Bella hadn't lain eyes upon her fiancé in a week, and she felt empty, frightened... She remembered, shivering, the time he had left her, and the sense that she had been falling to pieces like an old rag doll, forgotten, alone, in some cold, old attic.

This time it was worse, if that were possible. Bella knew that he was only on the other side of town, lying in his room, but she knew, also, that he was in pain. Something was wrong with him, and no doctor, not even Carlisle, could help.

She missed Alice and her gentle, constant chatter, and she wished she was there. She wished Jasper was there, too, imagining the wave of calm that seemed to permanently resonate around him.

There was no one to comfort her, though Charlie and the people she passed on the street tried. There was no one to laugh with when she needed it so badly.

Her world had suddenly become naught but a void. It was bad enough she couldn't hear his voice, his laughter. She couldn't see his crooked smile. It was bad enough she woke up every morning and rolled over looking for the cold, hard spot she knew should be there, finding, as always, that he wasn't.

But worse than that, she hadn't even warm arms to crawl to in Edward's absence.  
Her hands were fastened around his neck. Her skin was hot, but his was cold, damn, it was cold. She wanted–

* * *

"Edward," she whimpered, "I can't, not anymore, I can't..."

He moved away from her before she finished. His face was strangely remote, like it always was when he didn't want to betray something. "Are you–"

"Tired," she murmured. "Tired."

And she reached for him, pulling him down to lay beside her. He was still like a statue, where she heaved for breath and shivered with the memory of his touch. He didn't move. He didn't breathe. He didn't hum her lullaby, but she was asleep in seconds.  
When she slept that night, before she woke up only half an hour later and rolled into Edward's arms, she heard his voice. His voice whispered in her ears again and again, like the echo of the wind as it blew through the mountains.

* * *

**Can't I leave one rule unbroken?  
**

* * *

It was Rosalie who answered the phone. "When can we come home, Rose?"

The voice was Jasper's this time. She found this strange. They were used to Alice's calls; every day, _every day_ for the past week. _Now, now can we come? Is he better?_

He still wasn't better, and he wasn't getting better. He only lay there, unmoving and un-breathing except for the occasional moan of pain.

Bella wasn't allowed in the house. Rosalie and Emmett weren't allowed on the same floor as him. In fact, Carlisle had said that morning, 'If something doesn't change soon, you two are staying somewhere else. I don't want to risk anyone else getting this... I just... have never see anything like it.'

"I don't know, Jazz," Rosalie confessed. She sighed and twirled her hair on her finger. "If it's possible, Carlisle is getting further upset, even _more_ paranoid... I take it Alice is, must be, in hysterics? ...That she would make you call."

Rosalie expected Jasper to agree, but the answer took longer than she thought it would.

"You say that as if..." His voice was a whisper. She thought it sounded hard. "I care, too, Rosalie."

There was a click on the other end of the line.

* * *

It was Edward and Bella's wedding day.

Again, it was Jasper who called– this time Emmett answered, and he could hear Alice talking frantically in the background. He heard soft thudding, and he knew that Alice was packing her bags. "We're getting on the first plane that leaves, Jasper," he heard her murmuring, and Emmett thought her voice sounded desperate, strange, and so unlike the Alice he knew.

"He's no better?" Jasper asked, his voice strangely remote, unreadable.

"No. I think you should keep her there, Jasper," Emmett advised in the quietest voice he could manage, his eyes drifting to the staircase that led to the upper hall, and the door at the end of that hall. "It wouldn't do for her to see him like this. I feel like... it would only make it harder on her."

Jasper sighed. "I'll do my best, Emmett, but we need to come back soon. A nervous breakdown probably wouldn't do her any good either."

Neither knew what to say next. They stood in silence, an ocean apart, thinking of the days to come. Emmett heard a door slamming through the receiver, and Alice saying, "I'm checking out, and we're leaving."

Again, Jasper's voice was quiet, removed, but not cold. "I would never say this to her, because she never would understand, never _can_ understand. To her, the future is so much more close, so much more tangible than to the rest of us...

"But, you know Emmett, tomorrow is still tomorrow... Whatever lies beyond this morning is still a little later on."

* * *

The rain pattered against the roof, and Carlisle could hear the wind moaning past the eaves of the porch. Even over the noise, he made out the sound of chirping birds outside.

Somewhere in the house Emmett and Rosalie were talking quietly. The sounds of Esme, frantically re-upholstering furniture and cleaning parts of the house that had never even been entered to keep her mind off of Edward, could not be ignored. Fabric ripped loudly, and bristles of the broom seemed almost to scrape across the floor.

Somewhere in the corner of his mind, Carlisle heard church bells tolling... He heard the hum of people's voices, and the gentle serenade of the bridal chorus. He heard Edward's voice saying "I do," and he imagined the sound Bella's blood would make rushing to her cheeks as she blushed (because he had no doubt that she would have been bright red for the entirety of the ceremony).

It was none of this that caught Carlisle's attention that afternoon, though it was there, floating at the edges of his mind.

What Carlisle heard was a sound he remembered from almost eighty years ago. It was quiet, and at first he thought he had imagined it. Then it grew in volume, rapidly, and he realized that something was wrong, something was happening that he hadn't, couldn't have, predicted.

It was the beating of Edward's heart.


	4. Chapter 3

**Tangle of Thorns  
**_Chapter 3  
_

"Why am I making these?" Esme asked with a light smile.

It was Christmas time, 1979, and she was busy mixing apple spices into the dough she had already prepared. She was making gingerbread cookies, not entirely sure why apple had to be added to the recipe.

She turned and faced her five 'children,' all seated at the long kitchen table. In looking for the question's answer, Alice turned to face Rosalie, seated next to her, who turned to look questioningly to Emmett, who turned to Edward, who...

Was not paying attention.

Esme sighed, watching her 'youngest' affectionately. Though Edward was older than Rosalie, Emmett and Alice all– Jasper and Carlisle being the only members of their family older than him– he had been changed at a younger age than any of them, and Esme often found herself worrying about him. Many times she wondered if he'd been changed too soon, as if he was still not quite ready to be an adult, as if he never would be ready.

Of course, that was, in a way, what every mother wanted– for their children to stay young forever, never to grow up, always there for them to look after. At the same time, though, Esme wished that Edward could find some degree of happiness in this life. He insisted that he was fine, but Esme felt– maternal instincts, perhaps– that somewhere beneath his contentment with life, he was lonely. She'd never say this out loud, and she did her best not to even think it, but still, the thought was always there.

Edward seemed to realize that everyone was looking at him. He snapped out of his reverie and looked up at his mother from under his eyelashes.

He said, "Jasper likes the way they smell," and next to him, the blond grinned sheepishly.

Emmett snorted. "What's so great about gingerbread and apple? It smells pretty normal to me."

Jasper shrugged, seeming nonchalant, but– again, perhaps it was a mother's intuition– Esme thought she noticed a certain defensiveness in his eyes.

Jasper murmured, after a moment, "They're two of my three favourite smells." Jasper wrinkled up his nose. "I don't really remember, but I think apple was my favourite food when I was human." It sounded like a question. He pursed his lips. "It's one of the only foods that _they_ eat that doesn't smell... Revolting."

Esme smiled tightly, not wanting her son to think she was laughing at him. She set the bowl down on the table– the bowl having just been purchased for this occasion– and placed a pan next to it– the pan, too, just bought.

She tried not to laugh when she said it, but Jasper probably knew she felt like it anyways.

"Well, they're your cookies, dear." Esme kept her voice light. "Should I get you little cut outs so you can make shapes?"

Jasper's brow furrowed, even while a tiny smile graced his lips. She expected him to be the one to answer, but it was Emmett, instead, who said, "Oh, let's do teddy bears!"

* * *

It happened just after he returned, after those horrible, scary, 8 months of loneliness.

He was hunting, so he was away for a few days. This was before Bella started talking to Jacob again. She could have driven herself, could have been perfectly safe without being hauled around, but Edward didn't seem to think so. He had Alice drive her to work, and Emmett pick her up.

"You know," Emmett remarked, gazing out the window at the dark road. His voice sounded like music against a drumbeat of rain patters. "Edward used to..." Emmett trailed off, eyes still fixed away from Bella.

"Used to what?" she asked. She could feel another strand of Edward's past unraveling itself, and she grasped for it, wanting, _needing_ to know more. "_Emmett!_ Used to _what_?"

Emmett scoffed, and his eyes finally flickered to where Bella sat. He grinned.

"We shower because dirt, and other things, build up on us during the day. We don't sweat, though, and our hair doesn't get greasy, the way it does for you humans. So we don't actually have to use shampoo and stuff."

Bella pouted. "Emmett, stop trying to change the damn subject." Now she _really_ wanted to know.

"I'm not," he laughed. "I'm trying to tell you, but you keep yelling at me." The car–Edward's spare– pulled into Bella's driveway. Emmett chuckled, "Well, I'll see you later, Bella."

Bella felt her lips twisting into a pout. "_Emmett_," she pleaded, "Please please please tell me."

He shrugged. "Jeez, Bella, it's nothing major. He used to use lavender scented shampoo– quite a few years ago. He liked the way it smelled. That's all."

Bella stared at Emmett with what must have been a completely uncomprehending expression. "Why did you even bring it up if that was it?" she asked, but she stored the information away for safe keeping.

Emmett rolled his eyes. "It's how you _smell_, Bella. Like lavender. I'm just pointing out that it's always been one of his favourite scents, that's all."

"Oh." Bella knew that her tone was full of surprise. "And freesia, too right?" she eventually asked. "Edward said I smelled like that as well."

"Yep," was Emmett's answer. He said, "Edward used freesia scented shampoo for awhile, too. Another of his first choices... He pretty much struck gold with you, Bella."

Bella didn't know what to say. She looked down at her lap, ideas forming in her head, not quite taking shape, not quite making any sense.

"Of course," Emmett continued. "He's into honey, too."

"He is?" Bella inquired. "But..." She never finished her sentence.

Emmett shook his head, knowing. "You don't smell a thing like honey. But you got two out of three. That's pretty good." He looked at her as if trying to discern something. Then he said, "I know because he had honey car freshener things," as if he wasn't sure he'd answered the right question.

Bella sat quietly, eyes still trained on her lap. The rain droned on, and she remembered all the times Edward had talked to her about this same thing. _Floral_. That was the word that came up, almost always, unfailingly.

"Emmett," she finally ventured, and glanced up to see his face full of concern, probably worried that he'd said something which would later upset Edward.

"What is it?" he asked, gently touching her shoulder, and she smiled despite herself. Emmett was always the first to turn to when Bella wanted to hear a good joke, but she looked forward to having him as a brother because he was sensitive, too, and as reliable as the rock he felt like.

"I was wondering... How does it work? How does it _smell_? I mean, Edward used the lavender and the freesia and the honey scented stuff and it never made him... thirsty, right? So, why, if that's the way I smell...?"

Bella allowed the question to fade off, knowing Emmett would understand.

"Oh, that's simple," Emmett answered, smiling at the question, relief evident on his face. "Okay, what scents do you like the best?"

"Strawberries," Bella answered unthinkingly. "And Edward."

She blushed before the word was completely out of her mouth.

Emmett laughed at her, a devilish smile crossing his features. Bella stuck her tongue out at him, but the look on his face made her anger and embarrassment melt away. Soon she was giggling along with him.

Emmett shook his head. "Do you like the way chicken smells when you cook it?"

"Yes..." Bella gave Emmett a questioning look.

"Well it's like... you _smell_ like human blood– cooking chicken– more like _raw_ chicken, really, but I thought if the chicken was cooked you could better relate..."

"_Nice_ metaphor, Emmett. Really nice."

He shrugged, still grinning.

"Except... Human blood seasoned with lavender and freesia. Imagine cooking chicken with spices that smell like strawberry and... _Edward_ thrown in. That's what it's like."

"So I'm a cooking chicken that smells like lavender and freesia?" Bella asked, trying to keep her face from betraying a single emotion.

"Well, yeah. That just about sums you up, Bella."

Bella shook her head and opened the car door, getting out. She slammed it shut, turning towards the house. Then she heard the mechanical whirr of the window, followed by Emmett's voice, strangely quiet for once.

"Bella?"

"Yes?"

Emmett paused. "You don't..." He seemed to struggle for words. "You don't realize how grateful we all are to you. He's never so happy as when you're around." The car started to back away. "Bella," Emmett said, "Don't ever think that you're just a nice smelling chicken roast."

Bella was flustered at first. "I– won..."

Then she laughed. Only Emmett could say something so sweet with such ridiculous words.

"I won't Emmett," she chortled, and the car disappeared into the night. Bella headed slowly inside, pausing with her hand on the doorknob. She looked into the distance, to the moon in the sky.

"I won't," she whispered, to no one in particular.

* * *

The way a vampire smelled was hard to describe. In some cases, it was easy to notice the similarities between their human scent and their undead scent. In others, the only smell remaining from their human days was a subtle undertone, one it took supernatural senses to detect in the first place.

Vampires smelled sweet, unfailingly. They were like flowers, fruits, citruses. The way they smelled wasn't musky, or thick, but light, like sugar. Not for the most part anyways.

Jasper, for example, had a scent that was very earthen as a person. His blood would have smelled, more or less, like almond, tobacco and cinnamon. The scent wasn't _airy_, as is a vampire's. On the contrary it was a very thick, heavy smell. In Jasper's second life, he smelled like a pile of sugar with only the vaguest trace of almond. You would have to stand next to him and sniff his hair to notice it– even if you had superhuman nose power.

Scent, as vampires coming fresh into their new life, discovered with all too much force, is a complex thing. It isn't just perfume that has undertones and base notes. People do, too, and what they smell like can seriously affect the way they affect you.

Jasper seems a good example once more.

Some vampires don't pick up on the subtle scents. They don't notice the jasmine tones, or the slight, almost non-existent smell of citrus. A scent was a scent to them; vampires like this, by a fairly large majority, had never noticed the undertones because they never ran into any that smelled particularly good to them.

If someone puts a favourite spice on the fire, you're bound to notice it and recognize it, but if it's something boring, some scent you've never taken any fancy for, chances are it'll just slip by your recognition. All it really takes to awaken a vampire's senses to subtlety is to find a human that smells like their favourite scents, and wave them right under their nose.

* * *

He was trying to relax, though God knows it wasn't going all that well. The chair was a comfortable one– not that it made any difference against his rock hard back. The book was a favourite of his, but he couldn't keep his mind on it. The words in front of his eyes kept fading into people walking past, voices on overhead speakers, and a familiar scent hitting his nose. Then it was a bus door shutting as a young girl clambered on board.

Jasper shook his head, impelling himself to concentrate on the novel in front of him. He finally managed to drift into the world of the book, forgetting momentarily his worries. He didn't realize that the footsteps weren't his imagination until the door to the quiet room opened and someone stepped inside. The scent was easily recognizable. He squeezed his eyes shut, letting _The Fountainhead_ drop to his lap.

Jasper wondered confusedly at the emotions he felt coming off of the person who now stood behind his chair, but only for a moment. He forced himself to stop thinking about it.

Edward reached down and wrapped his arms around Jasper's neck, resting his chin on his brother's shoulder. Neither spoke. In a way, neither had to. It wasn't that Edward already knew everything Jasper said, or that Jasper understood perfectly the feelings Edward wanted to express with his words anyways. They didn't really need to say anything.

It was simple for Jasper to get along with Edward. There was an easy connection between them, a feeling that, maybe more so than the others, they really _were_ siblings. They had just never taken the time to strengthen that connection, to get to know each other. Sometimes Jasper regretted the fact that he'd never learned more about his brother. Other times he was glad that he'd spent so much time concentrating on Alice only, and that Edward had always been–before Bella at least– just little bit antisocial.

Sometimes he was happy that he didn't understand the way Edward thought as well as he did Emmett, or Rosalie, or any other member of their family. This was one of those times.

Jasper sighed, and Edward shifted, planting his forehead against Jasper's shoulder.

After a moment, he growled, "It smells like musty paper in here."

It hadn't been what Jasper expecting, and the tone in Edward's voice, against those words, was comical enough for him to let out a tiny laugh. He gazed fondly at the shelves that lined the walls, each of them sagging with the weight of the books on them. He answered, "Isn't it great? It's another of my favourites."

"Musty paper?" Edward asked disbelievingly, his voice quiet. "_Books_? They smell so... dry. _So_... I can't even describe it."

Jasper took in a deep breath, sucking in the room's air, but it was something else that finally cliked in his mind.

"Guarana."

"Pardon?" Edward asked, lifting his head. Jasper could feel his eyes on him.

"That's what it is. Beneath your vampire scent. Guarana. You smell like it... Just a little." He wrinkled up his nose. "I can't believe it took me fifty five years to figure that out. It's a bit... deeper?– than a vampire's regular smell."

Jasper felt the shock drifting from Edward, filling the room and changing the emotions that had settled before. Edward turned his head and sniffed his arm. He paused and then pressed his cheek against Jasper's neck.

"So I do." There was silence, and this time it seemed awkward. Edward let out a frustrated sound. "How did we get on to this topic? That's not what I came here to talk about."

Jasper closed his eyes again, and did his best to avoid picturing the airport, the look he remembered on Edward's face, the blood in the ballet studio...

Edward murmured, "It's not your fault, Jasper. I–" But then he seemed to falter for words, like even he couldn't think of a way to erase Jasper's guilt.

"I should've been able to tell that she was planning it. I should have _noticed_ something." His voice was bitter, cold, as he said it.

"No," Edward replied. "It... She said so herself, Jasper. It was... a _miracle_–" Edward's tone was wry, and Jasper felt a wave of cynicism, almost anger, coming off his brother. "That she got away from you."

Neither spoke after that. Not for awhile anyways. Finally Edward straightened, walking slowly across the room to the door. Jasper heard him turn the doorknob.

"Jasper."

Jasper didn't say anything, but Edward knew he was listening.

"I don't blame you."

The door clicked shut somewhere behind him.


	5. Chapter 4

**Tangle of Thorns  
**_Chapter 4_

The house became silent instantly. Emmett's voice, murmuring something to Rosalie, was cut off. Esme froze in her decorating, or cleaning, or whatever. Breath caught in everyone's lungs. Even the rain clouds seemed to hold off.

For a few moments, no one did anything but listen to the quiet _lub-dub _sound coming from Edward's room. It sounded, at first, like a miracle. It was fantastic. In fact, even later, the quiet noise still filled each of them with awe, though God knew they had reason enough to be scared.

It wasn't the beating heart that did it. It was, just seconds after the pulsing first began, the quiet, dry, whooshing sound that told Carlisle that something was horribly, terribly amiss.

* * *

Rosalie had been the one who called, though Emmett and Esme cautioned her not to. It was always Rosalie. She thought it was only fair– that people had the _right to know_. Last time it had been a disaster, and Bella'd had to convince Edward not to be so angry with his sister. This time, Bella was grateful, intensely grateful.

If Rosalie hadn't called, if something happened before she'd gotten there otherwise– she didn't know what she'd do.

Bella was a klutz, but she wasn't tripping now as she ran down the highway. There had been problems trying to start the truck up; she hadn't even bothered sitting around fiddling with the engine. She'd only written Charlie a quick note and started running. The rain splashed her face, and she was cold, very cold, but it hardly occurred to her. She just had to get to the hospital, to see what was going on.

Bella almost didn't notice the figure in front of her until she was practically on top of him– her eyes were trained on the pavement, watching warily for little rocks or anything else that might hinder her.

"Bella!"

Her head snapped up. Quil was standing not far from her. She stopped, out of breath. She tried to ask "what?" but she couldn't speak. She wasn't used to running like this. Quil took in her disheveled appearance and shook his head, watching quietly as she sucked in air.

"Why... The wedding?" he asked quietly when they'd been standing there long enough for her to be able to breathe. "Why the postponement? It can't be true what you told everyone– that he's..."

Quil bit his lip.

Bella stood a little straighter, answering, her voice sounding nervous, "But it is true, Quil. He's... He is sick. I... I'm headed to the hospital right now actually."

As if she had just remembered, Bella started flying down the street again. But she stopped only a few feet past him.

"Quil! Wait!"

He turned, as she did, and they were facing each other. Bella wanted to go see Edward, to turn and run, but she wanted to know, too, _had_ to know.

"Have you heard...?"

"No, Bella." Quil shook his head. "He's avoiding his wolf form, so we can't talk to him. And... He hasn't called." His smile was comforting. "We'll let you know, Bella, trust me."

Bella nodded, and turned away once more. The rain got in her eyes, momentarily blinding her. She rubbed them, wondering if, after everything was said and done, the wolves would even _talk _to her, let alone tell her where Jake was.

"Bella?"

Bella turned to face Quil once more. He jerked his head to the other side of the road, to where she saw Jacob's Rabbit parked. "Do you want a ride?"

There were a lot of mushy, sentimental thank yous Bella could give, but she had only the strength to nod.

* * *

It was a private phone call. There was no thought behind answering phones, going to rooms, talking to people, when his pager said he should. He'd been doing it for years. He hated to confess it, but pagers were like tiny gods for physicians. They were the only way to know what was supposed to happen next. So it was a regular, unexciting thing to pick up the phone and put it to his ear.

"Hello."

"Peter Gerandy?"

Dr. Gerandy knew he recognized the worried, female voice, but thought that it had never sounded quite this way. He'd obviously never spoken to her when she was so upset. That must have been why he couldn't quite pinpoint who she was, even while she babbled on about...

"Blood transfusions? What? Slow down, I can't–"

He heard the phone exchanging hands.

"Dr. Gerandy?"

He easily recognized Emmett Cullen's deep, resonant voice, and realized the person he'd just been talking to as his colleague's wife.

"What seems to be the problem?"

"Dad is bringing Edward in. I'm not entirely sure what's going on, but he said to call and tell you to have four liters of blood ready."

Though he was much more calm than his mother, his voice was still stressed, frightened.

"Four liters?" Peter heard himself saying in disbelief. He paused, thinking it through. "What blood type is he, do you know?"

"I haven't a clue and to be honest, I don't think Carlisle knows either."

"Alright, I'll handle it."

"Thank you."

The phone clicked shut in his ears, and Peter called up the order for the blood to be ready. He was expecting to see Carlisle bring his son in bleeding, horribly mangled or something. Why else could the kid need basically a complete replacement of his blood?

He didn't realize he was about to see the strangest thing he ever would for his entire medical career.

* * *

When Carlisle's car pulled up– barely two full minutes after Peter hung up with the man's son– no one was expecting what happened next. A stretcher was ready, and the blood IV was ready, but when they saw Edward Cullen, the people in charge of them became suddenly unready. He wasn't breathing, and if the people of Forks thought he was pale before, it was nothing compared to what they saw now. The skin on his face was paper white, and his veins stretched across it thick and black like a spider's web.

Carlisle hauled his son on to the stretcher, and for the first few moments, only Dr. Gerandy was able to keep his cool. He started inserting IVs, all the while acting as if he saw this thing every day– though the appearance of the teenage boy lying in front of them was like nothing any of them had ever viewed before. After a moment, the two nurses standing there managed to regain their senses, and soon Edward was rushed inside, around a corner and out of sight of the many spectators there.

It was a receptionist who thought to remind Carlisle that there was some unfinished paperwork left about a surgery he'd completed earlier in the day, that morning before he'd gone home. She'd seen parents, siblings, and spouses coming in and out of the hospital, and she recognized the look of someone who very badly needed to be distracted.

Carlisle said absently, "Is there?" and wandered off, she supposed, to his office, where a pile of paperwork did indeed await him; but for a vampire, whose mind can work in many different directions at once, there's no such thing as a distraction.

* * *

"How's Seth?" was all Bella could think to say as they got into the car and headed toward the hospital. After the fight in the tiny clearing that day, Edward and Seth had formed a strange link, a sense of real comradeship, she supposed. It was like– well_– _like they were friends. They didn't spend a lot of time together, couldn't really, because it was just too strange for the others, but they would stop to talk when they saw each other in the streets. And to be honest, Bella thought that it seemed as if she and Edward were out on the streets more often lately.

Quil's mouth turned up a little. "Good. A little worried. We all wondered what was going on when you made the excuse that he was ill. We didn't think that was true, of course, but we were concerned as to what was really going on." His brow wrinkled up. "If he _is_ actually sick... That's just... Well, maybe I won't mention it to Seth." He smiled wryly. "Which means I can't mention it to _anyone_ in the pack... Which could be difficult."

Bella giggled, but it sounded hollow. She breathed in deeply, the hospital now in view. She'd been so desperate to get there, but now she fidgeted, almost wanting to turn back. She was scared to see what condition they would find Edward in. Bella shut her eyes, trying to picture something good– Edward in the meadow, Edward serene expression as he hummed her lullaby for her at night.

When she opened them again, there was no where to run. The hospital loomed ahead like a cliff, just waiting for her to fall off.

* * *

Carlisle was filling out paperwork when Peter came in. He sat down in the chair across from him, glancing at the tiny clock on his desk. 2: 34. Though it seemed like forever ago, it had only been a few minutes ago that they'd wheeled Edward into his room. Now that the IVs were hooked up, there was nothing they could do but wait until it was safe to start doing tests. Carlisle barely glanced up, but Peter saw enough of his face to know that it was a mask of worry.

"What happened?" Peter asked, his brow furrowing.

Carlisle hesitated, and Peter assumed it was because he was remembering something unpleasant. "I just... found him like that. I couldn't find his pulse, but when I put my head to his chest his heart was beating. It made this sound– like it was hollow." Carlisle finally looked up, his eyes wide. "When you hooked him up, did you notice anything?"

"There was... No blood in his veins. Not a drop." Peter knew he must have looked a little ashamed. He cleared his throat. "We cut one of his arms open. Just.. To see. It was like... A river that's run dry. I can't say what happened. It's... The strangest thing I've ever seen."

He thought the tone Carlisle used was a little ironic when he said, simply, "me too."

* * *

When the car stopped in a parking space, she rushed inside, not heading for the front desk. Quil followed, a little bewildered and worried for her sanity, if not her safety. Bella instead burst in through the door of Carlisle's office, where Carlisle and Dr. Gerandy were 'trying to figure out' what was going on. Carlisle, of course, had a pretty good guess, but "well he used to be a vampire so when his heart started beating he had no blood to pump" sounded a little strange, even to him.

The two doctors looked up, one surprised, the other pretending to be. It was Dr. Gerandy who answered, "Room 317" to Bella's unspoken question. She rushed out of the room, leaving a dumbfounded Quil in the doorway.

He pointed absently after her and said, "I have never seen any girl move that fast," before following her to the stairs. He barely heard Dr. Gerandy call after them, "But he's just been hooked up ten minutes ago. He's still not got much blood in him. You might not want to see him..."

He didn't hear the rest of it. The elevator door slid shut behind them.

* * *

Dr. Gerandy was right. They didn't want to see him. Not like this.

Quil remembered sitting around with the pack, recalling memories of the fight for the others to see. There were impressive moments. There were scary moments. And there were downright awe-inspiring moments.

Seth's memory was one. Quil remembered how much they'd all enjoyed it– forget that it made a vampire look good, it was _awesome_. Edward had _bitten her head off_, and oh, man, did it drive the wolves wild. As much as they hated to admit it, it made him seem stronger, invincible, the way, he supposed, vampires were made to be.

Now here Edward lay, his veins standing out a strange shade of greyish black against white skin. The heart monitor beeped at Quil noisily. It seemed like there was a long time between each heartbeat. His breathing was uneven, and his throat made rasping sounds.

His face was turned away from the door where Quil leaned, and Bella had walked to the other side of the bed to stand in front of him. Not that he could see her. He was unconscious, completely knocked out. She drew in a shaky breath and knelt down, pressing his palm to her face. She kissed his fingertips once.

Quil looked away. He said nothing when he left, because he knew she wouldn't hear it anyways.

* * *

The note Charlie found on the door when he got home at five thirty that night was even more hectic, more messy than the one he'd found before. Bella's truck was still in the driveway, so when he saw the tiny scrap of paper he thought with fear that she'd run off. It was ridiculous, perhaps, but in under a few seconds a whole scenario had gone through his head: Edward's illness was faked, the rest of them were in on it, and they were stealing his daughter.

Then he read the note. She hadn't even taken the time to make sentences: _Dad– Edward hospital b bak l8er B._

Charlie walked back out into the rain and got into the police cruiser. He drove slowly to the hospital, not wanting to get there anytime soon. He didn't need to ask, when he walked up to the receptionist.

Her eyes were sympathetic, and before he could say a word, she murmured, "Room 317. Go left down the hall upstairs."

Charlie nodded, and shuffled slowly to the staircase– which he knew would take a few seconds longer than the elevator. When he got there, Bella was slumped over Edward's bed, fast asleep. Charlie wondered how long she'd been there for, taking in her rumpled clothes, her damp hair and the way her body had awkwardly twisted into what was supposed to be a comfortable position.

Of course, Edward looked even worse. Charlie didn't get to see him in the spidery, black veined glory others had, but his skin remained paler than usual, and his lips were tinted slightly darker than they should have been. Every here and there was a tiny, coal coloured vein that hadn't yet been restored to full circulation.

Charlie shook Bella awake, looking anywhere but at Edward's face. Her eyelids fluttered, and she sat up slowly.

"Wha–?"

"Bella, honey,"he said quietly. "Let's go. You need to sleep somewhere a little more comfortable, I think."

Bella looked around. "Oh. Right, right..."

She stood on shaky legs, leaning over to kiss Edward's forehead. She didn't protest when Charlie wrapped one arm around her shoulder and led her gently into the hallway. Instead she only trembled slightly, rubbing her eyes with her wrist.

Charlie glanced up as they were leaving, and saw Edward's mother rushing down the hall, trailed slowly by the big one– Emmett, and Rosalie, the pretty one. Esme passed without seeming to notice them, looking frantic, dazed, and terrified. Emmett on the other hand, smiled almost timidly as he passed. Rosalie's expression was blank. _Dead_, perhaps, would have been a better word.

Charlie pushed the ground floor button when they got in the elevator, fixing his eyes ahead of him. He didn't want to look at her face. Across the hall, the door of a testing room opened, and Carlisle emerged, looking exhausted, worn. The last thing Charlie saw was his head dip down in a polite nod, when he noticed them standing there, before the mechanical door slid shut, closing the space between them.

* * *

They'd had to go home for appearances. They couldn't stay all night– well, they could, but it would look strange for all four of them to.

He showed up late. Visiting hours were over in less than a few minutes. That was okay. He didn't need more than a few minutes. He didn't go to the front desk to ask what room Edward was in. He didn't want anyone to notice him, after all. Instead he just followed the most powerful vampire trail he could find.

He didn't know what he intended to do. What he thought.

In the end, he only stood on one end of the tiny room, staring. The monitor bleeped. Edward breathed slowly. He left before he had to be told to.

The next morning, Edward was transferred to a different room. Various members of his family were in and out all day, but there was nothing to find.

None of them went in there of course, so none of them noticed the slight werewolf scent that lingered in the room Edward had slept in the night before.


	6. Chapter 5

**Tangle of Thorns  
**_Chapter 5  
_

Their flight had been delayed. Alice was still as stone, curled up on one of the airport seats. Every now and then she let out a tiny, pathetic moan.

Jasper tried comforting her– in every way he knew how– but it seemed like she was just too damn sad. The moment his wall of comfort slipped, even a little– like when a clumsy eight year old had spilled her juice on his head and he'd had to convince the parents he wasn't bothered a bit– Alice fell back into a miserable depression.

He didn't know what to say. Jasper had never been in this sort of situation. He'd never been so scared himself. How could he comfort her when he couldn't even convince himself it was okay?

"Alice," he finally murmured, wrapping his arms around her. "He'll be fine. Trust me."

"How can you know that, though?" she asked, snuggling up to his side– awkward with the chair's arm between them. "_I _don't know that."

"Just this once let's not worry too much about what your vision says."

Alice whimpered, and then stiffened. Suddenly she shot up in her seat, eyes alight.

"_Nous va maintenant commencer l'embarquement pour le vol C116_."

We will now begin boarding for flight C116. This was them. Jasper took a deep breath. Time to go.

* * *

"Have you noticed?" Esme asked, looking to where Carlisle sat across the room. He turned his head slightly, cocking it to the side almost like a dog, to let her know he was listening. She sighed, continuing, "It's always him. Whenever anything happens that we have to worry about. It's always him... The one I worry about the most anyways."

Carlisle's eyes regarded Esme calmly. She shrugged.

"Because the others have always been able to take care of themselves just fine. But Edward... He's... different, you know. Alice never had parents. And Emmett, Jasper, and Rosalie all functioned independently of theirs when they were changed. Edward never did."

Carlisle smiled then, his eyes full of laughter. "And for this reason you feel he needs you the way a four year old would?" His voice was teasing, but not malicious. It never was.

Esme grinned herself, turning to look once more at her son where he lay in the bed beside her. "Well, I like to think so."

* * *

Alice was thinking about Edward's future, pressed into the deep airplane seat, staring ahead. Jasper was thinking about Edward's past, and why the hell he hadn't been more involved in it.

He wondered, his whole mind concentrated on the one thing, how it was that he had never gotten to know his brother, for he was that– his brother– even if they never talked. The thing with Edward was, Jasper felt as if they had a relationship without speaking. He didn't have brotherly conversations with Edward the way Emmett did, or the way Jasper did _with_ Emmett, but they were still _close_. Up until now, that had always seemed like enough. In fact, as he thought about it, he realized that almost every conversation they had ever had that was deeper than the superficial– except maybe one– had been after Bella came along.

Edward wanted to know if Jasper had ever met a human who smelled so fantastic as Bella did to him. Edward wanted to let Jasper know he didn't blame him over losing Bella. Again, Edward wanted Jasper to know he didn't blame him– on this occasion for trying to eat her. And for a final time, Edward didn't want Jasper to think he was angry over his idea to use Bella for bait.

So they didn't _talk_ often. They didn't_ know _each other. Jasper didn't understand what went through Edward's head all the time. They went hunting together– when Emmett went along, too. And they played baseball together– the rest of the family was there, too, _yeah_. In a way, it didn't matter. Jasper was somehow, he felt, even closer to Edward than he was to Emmett or Rosalie, despite their lack of contact. They didn't need to talk.

He used to, _sometimes_, when he was upset, or distressed, but didn't want to have a chat about it with Alice or Emmett or whoever, seek out Edward. They didn't chat about it, either. Jasper would just sit on the floor by Edward's piano, leaning his head against the dark wood and listening to the music, neither of them needing any words– except for one time, when they had a brief conversation. But that wasn't how it usually worked. They were more often just silent– except for the music– until someone came home, or entered the room, and the moment just... died.

Anyways, it seemed like that was all he needed from Edward, was his presence, not conversation. The rest didn't matter. At least, that was what Jasper had told himself up til this point.

He closed his eyes, leaned his head back into the cushiony seat, thinking of Edward lying around sick back in Forks, unable to move, to talk. Because their easy, natural connection was always in place, he had never _really_ cared too much that he didn't know his brother. He realized now that he might never get a chance to.

* * *

"Are... You guys going to be home soon?"

Emmett was a strong guy, not just physically. Sure he'd been a little emotional the last few times Jasper had spoken to him, but it was nothing like this. Emmett's voice was tiny, and terrified.

"Our flight out of Chicago's delayed until much later tonight... Technically tomorrow morning"

"...And?"

Jasper chuckled despite the tense mood of the conversation. "I _am_ quite surprised Alice hasn't just stolen a car and driven us back to Washington, actually... I think she is... _scared_– of what we might find, when we get back."

Jasper heard his brother's shaky breath. He could picture Emmett, halfway across the country, shivering with worry as he stood at the phone.

"I don't blame her, Jasper. It's... not a pretty sight."

What was he supposed to say to that? Jasper cleared his throat, though he didn't need to.

"We'll be home soon."

It was all he could think of that was even remotely appropriate.

* * *

Seth's whimper was quiet. His nose was buried into the ground. The eight pack members who stood around the circle were tense, curious as they saw the images Quil was remembering.

_Vampires can't get sick_.

Sometimes it was hard to discern one voice from the other within the pack mind. Sometimes it didn't matter who said what.

_Obviously, they can_.

_What Edward has– had– what it did to him; do you think_...?

The eight pack members turned their heads, staring at the smoke rising, in the distance, from the chimney of Emily and Sam's home. They didn't need to hear it to know that she was trying to coax various medicines and cough syrups down Embry's throat.

_No_.

This was the one obvious voice. The only girl. The bitch (not meaning female dog here). Leah.

_No_, she repeated, shaking her ears. _What makes a vampire sick wouldn't make _us_ sick_. _It would only affect them_.

The pack was silent for a moment. Seth was the last to say anything before Quil morphed and the others followed his lead, disappearing to their own homes; others simply remained a beast, rushing into the woods for solace.

_Leah's wrong_. _Remember:_

_Bella had it, too_.

* * *

Their flight was soon, kind of... In six hours– at twelve thirty in the morning, for God's sake– they would be boarding their plane, but Alice didn't seem to want to go. She sat stiffly at Jasper's side, her spiky hair unkempt and her clothes wrinkled.

"Jasper..." she whined, and then sat up suddenly. "Oh, God," she said. "_Oh, God_.."

"Alice," Jasper whispered fiercely in her ear. "What is it? What do you see?"

"Emmett," Alice answered. "And Rose... And Edward. Not even ten minutes from now. They're standing over him... In a hospital room, Jasper."

Jasper leaned away. "I'm sorry, _what?_ Alice, are you sure?"

"Jasper," Alice breathed. "He's... The heart monitor is... _beeping_. And... I can hear his pulse."

* * *

Carlisle had said that he didn't even care. Tomorrow morning, no matter what, he was checking Edward out. He was taking his son home. The other doctors were protesting, but Carlisle's choice was made. "First thing," he had insisted. "Tomorrow morning, he's leaving... There's nothing more to find. He's better. The tests said nothing was wrong. It seems like... some sort of freak occurrence. I can keep a watch on him at home just as well as I could here."

So it was settled then. First thing tomorrow, Edward was going home. Emmett stood at Edward's bedside, worrying about what it would be like. Who would cook for Edward? Who would stay home all the time to watch him, to make sure he was safe? He was relieved when the thought occurred to him that Esme would undoubtedly step in as super mom. He didn't think he could handle having to supervise his own brother. Bella he could handle. She was human. She was fragile. Somehow it still hadn't hit home that Edward was too. He felt like Edward was going to wake up and they would all realize that the heartbeat was just a temporary mistake.

Emmett said all this out loud to Rosalie, who scoffed.

"None of us will have to look after him Emmett. He's nineteen... One hundred and five."

"Seventeen," Emmett corrected. "And human. And breakable."

Rosalie sighed, her beautiful eyes betraying how tense she was. Emmett could see that she was confused, and he knew that she was worried too, though she acted like there was no need for concern. He also saw that she was wildly jealous, maybe even angry with Edward.

Rosalie shut her eyes, clenched her teeth together, breathing in deeply. Her eyelids flew open within just a single second. She shook her head, bending her head down towards their brother.

"He smells so nice," she murmured, trying to distract herself perhaps. "Like ginger and guarana."

Emmett leaned in a little closer to Edward, breathing deeply. "Mhm," he agreed, "And there's something else... Do you smell it? ...Apples, maybe?"

"Yes," Rosalie agreed, her voice vague. "That's it, definitely."

Their faces were inches apart, each of them hovering just above their brother's body. Rosalie glanced up to meet Emmett's gaze and raised an eyebrow. The feel of her eyes on him gave Emmett a thrill, as usual. He moved even closer; their lips so close now, he could almost feel her...

Edward let out a tiny moan and shifted.

Emmett froze. Rosalie bit her lip, glancing down. She looked back to Emmett.

"This is... really weird," he said, and the jealousy, the anger, the resentment didn't disappear from her gaze, but Rosalie laughed and it was a happy sound.

It was all Emmett needed to hear, but that didn't mean he wasn't further overjoyed when she laced her fingers through his and said, dreamily, "Let's... go somewhere... Somewhere... quiet. Private."

He grinned, knowing he looked like an obnoxious goof. "Lead the way, Rose. I'll follow."

* * *

His parents were taking Edward home. Just like they said they would. Edward stumbled out of the hospital door, his arms fastened around Carlisle's waist. The black veins were gone, and his skin seemed more colourful (at least, it seemed a little less like a blank sheet of paper). Esme opened the car door, and Carlisle gently helped his son inside.

Edward seemed better, the last the people at the hospital staff saw of him that day. As the dark Mercedes drove off, they thought that he was going to the next best place to the hospital anyways.

With a family like that watching over him, what bad could happen?

* * *

Their flight didn't get in till six in the morning, because take off had been (surprise, surprise) delayed. Again. But they had finally arrived. They'd grabbed their luggage and beaten it out of there. Alice had driven like a maniac. It was early afternoon, and Alice ground the car (stolen) to a halt in their driveway, not bothering with the garage. She flew up the steps and into the house.

Jasper followed more slowly, taking the front stairs one by one. He breathed in the smell of the rain and the wet moss on the trees, still inhaling as he reached for the doorknob and stepped inside. His foot stopped over the threshold. His ears strained to hear the pulse coming from upstairs, to pick out that sound above Alice's chatter and Edward's quiet protests. His lungs expelled the air within and then sucked in more.

The scent that filled the house almost knocked Jasper to the ground, so wonderful, so heavenly...

If Jasper had known that humans smelling like this existed in the world, he would have crossed oceans and fire to find them. But Jasper didn't need to do something like that. All he had to do walk up the few stairs between him and that tiny, exhilarating heartbeat. Jasper's muscles were tight, his teeth clenched. He had never struggled this hard against his instincts.

He realized that, actually, the room wasn't filled with the scent. There was only the slightest trace of it, a tiny remaining speck of it on the fabric of the cushions. It didn't matter. Jasper would have detected it in room with a pool full of perfumes. It was fantastic. It was delicious, mouth watering. It was... his own brother.

Jasper turned and rushed out the door. Jasper thought of the feel the wind had made against his face on another night. He thought of Bella's blood spilled across the piano, and Edward following him. Edward assuring him. _I understand, Jasper_... _You know I do_.

But Edward didn't understand. He couldn't. He had stayed in that classroom, that first day, for over an hour. He had handled it. The trees flew by. The rain drenched Jasper's clothes, his hair. His feet pounded into the earth, leaving holes that seemed like tiny craters.

He was running away. Again.

It seemed so weak to him, at the time, but he would realize later that it was one of the strongest things he'd ever done.


	7. Chapter 6

**Tangle of Thorns  
**_Chapter 6_

The forest spread before them like the ocean folded across the beach, pooling at their feet, though far, far below. The peak where Alice and Jasper stood was rocky, and few trees scattered the mountainside. Jasper looked out over the scenery as he told Alice that he'd really rather just get the hunting trip over with and go home. She knew it was because he was eager to get back and begin testing his boundaries once more. He wanted so badly to be able to act around humans the way the rest of the family could.

"Jasper," she sighed, exasperation getting the best of her. "You're always so... practical. Why don't you just let loose, have some fun! You know... forgetting your inhibitions isn't as bad as you seem to think."

Jasper scoffed. "I control emotions, Alice, not the other way around."

Of course. Everything was about control with Jasper- his bloodlust, other people's feelings, his own feelings.. Jasper seemed to think he had to master them all, to make them fit into the world the way he wanted. Even their relationship sometimes felt like a mathematical problem, and Jasper was so convinced that only he could make it work; it was a battlefield waiting for strategy. He just had to be the one calling the shots. The only person she'd ever seen him really submit to was Carlisle.

Well, that was fine. Jasper could block out his emotions, be in charge of others'; he could struggle all he wanted against his desire for human blood. Alice grinned wickedly. On top of that, Jasper could think it all he wanted, but couldn't couldn't ever, _ever_ control her. She lunged for him, taking him square in the back.

"Alliccee!" he cried out as they tumbled down the mountainside, bounding over rock and smashing loudly through tree branches. Their landing at the bottom went better than Alice expected, actually, Jasper flat on his back and she atop his waist.

"Well, well," she commented casually, though no tone of voice could hide her satisfaction from him. "Look who came out on top."

"I let you," Jasper replied evenly, nodding his head towards her courteously.

"Oh, really. You did, did you?"

"That's right."

Alice laughed, the sound pealing off the mountain and echoing back to them. She dropped a kiss onto Jasper's lips, her heart feeling warmer than was perhaps possible for their kind. It always did with him.

Jasper rolled, shifting so she was beneath him, cradled in his arms. Alice hardly cared- she may have been on bottom, the tiny, submissive one, it seemed, but they both knew, as the kiss deepened, as his hands roamed across her body, even as her clothes- but not his- began flying everywhere, she was the one in control now.

* * *

It was the winter of 1964, and Emmett didn't for a moment suspect what was coming for him. To the best of their burly brother's knowledge, the snowball fight had ended hours ago. Now Emmett was wandering aimlessly through the forest, looking for Jasper and Edward. Probably he assumed they had gone back to the house without him, crossing the many miles and expecting Emmett to return in his own good time.

Actually Jasper was sitting high in the trees, a blanket stretched between him and Edward. It had been a difficult maneuver, but they had piled it with over a hundred pounds of snow, and now they waited for Emmett to cross the trail below them. Jasper looked across to where Edward sat in his own tree, holding the woollen blanket and scanning the forest below them. Jasper knew that Edward would be able to tell when Emmett was coming, and that his careful watching of the ground would not be what let them know when to be ready.

Edward flashed a mischievous, childish grin at Jasper, and the blond felt a surge of affection for his younger brother. The plan to team up on Emmett had been more about getting revenge on his big brother, but now that they were putting it into motion, it seemed like the opportunity to spend some quality time with Edward was worth the effort in itself.

Edward's gaze suddenly snapped off to the west, and Jasper knew Emmett was coming. Sure enough, within moments the sound of the huge man's heavy footfalls reached their ears. They knew the exact right moment to drop the snow, and their aim was flawless. Jasper heard heavy curses fill the air below them, the crashing of snow landing on their brother, and echoing off the mountains, Edward's musical laughter.

* * *

Edward was the only one who would agree to go on a hunting trip so soon after the last one. Emmett was skulking around the house, mumbling about an argument earlier with Rosalie, and Carlisle was at work. The girls had left days ago to go hunting themselves. Jasper had come back just this Monday from hunting, but already he felt his control slipping. He had come so close, too close, to a young ninth grade boy that day in school, and had just barely managed to leave the building without doing any damage.

Neither Edward or Jasper had ever been much for conversation, really, and Jasper knew that Edward heard and saw it as he relived the difficult moments that were now causing him so much guilt. The moment must have been awkward for Edward, as he watched, from Jasper's point of view, the fantasized scene where he slit the child's throat and drank him dry, but Edward didn't say anything.

He was singing along enthusiastically to the song playing on the radio, showing no degree of discomfort as he drove along the highway. Edward's musical talent didn't end with the piano– God could he sing, better than the artist themselves, in fact. Jasper listened curiously, realizing he recognized the song as one that had been famous almost a whole decade ago. He didn't have conversations with Edward about his musical tastes or anything, but he thought this was the sort of selection that seemed a little off for his brother.

"I thought you didn't like music from the 60s... Particularly not the Bee Gees," he commented, his voice teasing.

Edward's smile was bashful. "There's always an exception... And I don't like the Bee Gees, just the song. It has potential. If _I_ were the one who'd recorded it, it would be fantastic."

Jasper chuckled, looking out the window, and Edward continued singing along. Edwrad didn't lie. His version of the song was more powerful, more melodic than the one on the radio. The trees zipped by, a green blur to human eyes, but Jasper saw every detail, every separate leaf. Edward's voice filled the Monte Carlo (Rosalie's baby as it was otherwise referred to).

"You don't know what it's like... To love somebody..." He grinned over at Jasper, who rolled his eyes at his brother, though he didn't really mind hearing Edward expertly hitting notes the Bee Gees probably hadn't realized existed.

"To love somebody... the way I love you."

* * *

Edward was as good as dead.

Jasper's guilt consumed him, his head buried in his lap. Memories of his past haunted him, and his future loomed frighteningly ahead. The trees creaked as the wind moaned through them, sounding like the souls of a thousand deceased, the spirit world that was just waiting for his brother to join them. Jasper knew how he would do it.

He was going to head home, coming in through a back entrance to avoid that cursed, heavenly scent. He'd pack up his photos of Alice, every one of them, and he'd bring a few of his other family members as well– but not Edward. He'd burn his favourite, the best one, and cut Edward out of pictures he wanted to keep. He'd be all ready to go, all prepared to leave. Then would come the hard part.

He'd kill Bella first, for two reasons. A), he couldn't stand it if the poor girl had to learn of Edward's death, had to hear of her beloved's murder. Since he was going to do this, he would do it causing as little distress as possible. He would make it painless for her, snapping her neck quickly, cleanly. B), it was a distraction. While his family rushed to see what was going on with Bella, when Alice saw that she was hurt– no, dead, they would leave the house. They wouldn't bring Edward with them. They wouldn't even tell him what was going on. He would be defenseless, alone.

Jasper would tell Edward they were going to check on Bella, that something had happened. He would drive the opposite way, but in his concern, Jasper knew that Edward wouldn't notice. Once they had driven 10 minutes outside Forks, then Edward would begin to wonder, but he wouldn't be scared, or even a little bit upset. Jasper was going to see to that. Edward wouldn't experience one moment of fear

Jasper would leave Edward's body and the car somewhere they could be found. After all, it was the least he could do to let his brother have a proper burial, to let his family have a funeral, some way of saying goodbye.

Jasper pictured Alice standing, dressed in clothes of mourning, next to Edward's coffin, and wished he could work his gift on himself. He wanted nothing more than to erase the guilt and the shame that he already felt. He knew it would be ten times worse after the deed had been done. How could he ever forgive himself after this? How could anyone?

Alice was the most kind and caring person that Jasper knew, but even she couldn't ignore a sin like this. Edward wasn't just her brother; he was her best friend, and here he was planning to kill him. Forget that it would hurt Bella. Just knowing that he had thought these things would kill Alice. Was Jasper really going to do this to her?

He didn't have to, he realized dimly. Instead of killing Bella after returning home to collect his things, he would just leave. He could live in a cave in Washington State park somewhere, carrying nothing but his books and his pictures. He would hunt only nearby animals. The forest was big enough that no tourists would ever find him.

Alice would never find him either, would never have to see him again. Jasper was... a monster, but he loved Alice, and he couldn't bear to hurt her more than he had to.

Jasper wasn't going to kill Edward. He could do better than that. Jasper glanced up at the clouds above him, remembering his opinion of Forks when they had first moved there. It was so black, so gloomy... It seemed like God had condemned the people of the tiny town to a life of darkness. Jasper wondered now if that wasn't exactly correct.

* * *

Edward's memories were coming back. Slowly, surely, they were coming back. Not that he'd forgotten anything recently. It was his human memories, long ago buried away beneath the venom in his skull. Now areas of his brain that were once clogged and unfunctioning came back to life, startlingly.

Perhaps because she was the one Carlisle had spoken to, the one Edward looked like, the one who'd urged the doctor to bring him into his new life, Edward had always pictured himself as having been closer to his mother. He didn't remember, but he thought she must have been the one who'd taught him to play- because he certainly hadn't taught himself; he thought it was her he got his musical talent from.

It was his father, actually- though Elizabeth Masen did have an astounding singing voice- who'd sat with him for hours on end when he was younger, painstakingly showing his son how to read sheet music, and the proper fingering techniques. He never once made things tedious, though, always remembering that Edward was young- six when he started being taught- and that the best way to inspire interest is to inspire joy.

To the rest of the social ring his family stood at, Edward Masen Sr. was an uptight man, always on time and never impolite, always referred to as "Mr. Masen" unless you were a close friend, or a member of the family he'd been a part of growing up; then he was Edward, but the relationship still seemed formal rather than friendly.

But inside his own home, he was Anthony to his wife, and the most loving parent any child could ever hope for.

Now, half unconscious in the summer of 2006, Edward remembered sitting on the piano bench next to his father. It was supposed to be lessons, but he was six years old, he was tired, and instead of trying to teach him anything, his father instead played him a simple lullaby, letting him fall asleep against his side. His mother is insisting on his bath even though he was already halfway into dreamland, and he complains half-heartedly, rubbing his eyes with a tiny fist. Then he feels nothing except for the easy, rocking motion of being cradled in his father's arms and laid down in bed.

When Edward wakes up, he's not in his room. The walls aren't even walls. They're blankets hanging like drapes. There are the strangest looking books he's ever seen on a monstrously huge shelf on one side of the room. And just above his face, hovering over him, is the biggest man Edward has ever seen. The man's black hair is curly and glossy, his facial features are so perfect it makes Edward confused; his eyes are a vibrant, piercing gold. Like a hawk's, perhaps, or a bobcat's. They're the sort of eyes you see peering out of the darkness in your nightmares.

Edward's breath came in sharply, and he twisted uncomfortably. He was lying on a bed, a big one, and it was plush and soft, but he felt fear rushing through every part of his body. He wanted to get up, to move, but he felt light headed, unsure of his ability to sit upright, let alone to leave.

"Edward?" the huge man asked, his voice smooth and attractive- and, though elusive in Edward's mind, familiar. His eyebrows knotted in concern. "Are you okay? Should I go get Carlisle?"

Edward didn't answer, only managing to let out a tiny, confused sound. He stared into the face before him.

He murmured, "Do I know you?", finally finding his voice.

"I'll be right back," he was told by his companion, whose eyes had widened in shock.

"No," Edward gasped, recognizing something in the way the man, though so large, moved so fluidly. "No, it's okay... I remember now. It's okay...

"Don't go, Emmett," Edward sighed, and then slipped back into darkness.

Back into sleep.


	8. Chapter 7

**Tangle of Thorns  
**_Chapter 7  
_

Footsteps faded gently away as Charlie headed off, having given up trying to rouse Bella. She hadn't eaten since the day she had seen Edward in the hospital, and she hadn't the heart to return and visit him once more. She was terrified of seeing him that way. Edward was the certainty in her life, though their relationship always had its ups and downs. Even through the bad times, though- lately, at least- she knew he would be there for her. Now Bella wondered if he _could _be.

She remembered him so strong, so arrogant and sure. But the memory seemed far away, fuzzy, like an almost forgotten dream. All she could think of now was Edward lying helpless in a hospital bed, looking worse than she had ever seen any person look- even the vampires, after their heads were ripped off, didn't seem as gruesome as that image of her fiance.

Bella whimpered, missing the presence of Edward's arms around her. In any other situation, she wouldn't have been curled up alone on her bed. She would have been on Edward's lap, in his tight embrace. Bella's heart throbbed almost painfully in her chest. She knew that she needed to see him, needed to be next to him, but couldn't manage the courage it took to go to the large mansion where his family had whisked him off to. Bella didn't think she could bare to see him looking so weak.

Oh, how she wished-

Bella stopped herself from thinking it. After everything Edward had done for her, everything he had saved her from, he was sick, because of her. And instead of going to his side, she was picturing herself in another man's arms.

Bella sat up, wiping angry tears from her eyes. She hated herself for being so worried about Jake when Edward was the one who needed her. Jake made his own choice to leave, she reminded herself. All Edward had done was sit next to her when she was ill, and now his existence was changing, possibly for the worse, because of it.

She shivered as the thought came to her. What would happen, if it turned out this wasn't the miracle it seemed? What if he didn't just get a little softer and warmer? What if Edward kept on deteriorating, sickening ever further until he was dead? Bella shook her head, scrambling down stairs.

Somehow only one word stuck into her head, though, as she contemplated the possibilities. _Miracle_. This was hers. Hers and Edward. He was human. She had seen the heart monitor beeping.

After grabbing her raincoat, Bella started up her old truck- after a few tries- not caring that she was still in her pyjama pants.

The rain was nothing more than a light drizzle today, the sky bright, though cloudy. It wasn't sunshine, but in Forks, even this kind of weather felt like a good omen. Bella bit her lower lip, her stomach twisting. They were equals now. She and Edward could really be together. Her vision of her life with Jake was so much more real now- except now it could be Edward. It could be him she shared her human life with, without having to worry about...

Without having to worry about what? Bella pulled into the long driveway, thinking with despair about all the burdens she felt suddenly upon her. What would the rest of the Cullens do? Would she and Edward go with them, when they inevitably left? Surely he wouldn't want to leave his family of eighty years. Or would they remain here, letting go of his old life? Could Bella even do that, knowing that it meant seeing Jake all the time, knowing that it meant he would always be watching her living happily with someone else?

She thought of Charlie and Renee. She would love so much to stay, not to have to disappear after a marriage that was too early- the wedding, she realized, could be held off until later now. There was no time limit.

Bella groaned. No, it couldn't. The Cullens couldn't stay forever. She wanted to give her parents a chance to see her married, so they would know she was happy. Now that the tables were returned, was she honestly going to deny that to Esme and Carlisle? They were as much her family as her actual parents.

Bella pushed the door of the truck open, and stood in the rain, hesitant. She was soaked through when a burst of resolve finally propelled her up the steps and to knock on the door. Esme opened it, and smiled gently. She seemed hesitant, Bella thought, to let her in. But after a moment she did, telling her softly that Edward was asleep and they didn't want to wake him.

"That's fine," Bella said quickly, and rushed past Esme, taking the stairs two at a time. How she managed to stay on her feet she didn't know, but she did, and finally she was there, in his bedroom, staring at his still form. Edward was just as beautiful as he ever had been, perhaps even more so now that his cheeks were a little more coloured, and the dark bags under his eyes were gone. She fidgeted, wanting to reach out and touch him. What had she been thinking on the way here, about her and Edward being equals now? It was still untrue. Edward was as gorgeous, as Godlike as he ever had been. And she was just- Bella. Just Bella.

She reached out to caress his cheek gently, some water off her raincoat sprinkling his face. He flinched, turning his head into the pillow and letting out a tiny sigh. Bella pulled her arm back, shrugging quickly out of the coat, and kicking off her boots. She paused only a moment before she pulled her sopping pyjama pants off, too, and crawled under the blankets. Wrapping her arms around him, Bella buried her head into Edward's shoulder, and he sleepily reacted, curling his body towards her.

His body was warm, and she felt her cheek, cold from the air outside, warming against his skin. She shifted, only slightly, not wanting to wake him. Bella pressed her ear to his chest, listening.

There it was. A soft, steady beat, pulsing out the tempo of Bella's life.

And, she realized, suddenly afraid, pulsing out the rest of Edward's. Beat by beat. Every throb meant one less second he was going to live, one more human ailment that could befall him.

She was crying, rubbing her tears against his skin, the area around her eyes raw and burning. Bella was aware that now she really had to cherish every moment she had with him. It wasn't just her life that was controlled by a time limit. It was Edward's too. She wanted to stare at him forever. She wanted to be always conscious of his arms around her. Bella concentrated hard on studying Edward's perfect face, his arms, the way his chest looked covered by a simple white t shirt. But she didn't last long doing that.

It was the natural course of things; within only a minute Bella was asleep in his arms.

* * *

Jasper came in through a side door, holding his breath as he entered the house- the unpleasant smell of moss and rot still in his nostrils from his outdoor walk. It was horrible. And perfect, all at once. Jasper had two rooms in the house which he considered his- the entrances to both in a far corner of the huge building, where he was headed now. The door shut behind him, and he padded down the hall, his feet soft on the floor. Jasper paused when he reached the two separate doorways, but the decision was not difficult to make. He pushed open the door to his library with a sigh, knowing that his dark room, where he developed photos, was going to be too difficult. He didn't think he could stand to see his family at the time, even if it was only still images.

Jasper froze as he entered; no such luck. Lounging on a sofa in the center of the room was Rosalie, blonde, beautiful, and heartbroken. The air was thick with her anger, her jealousy and resentment, but most of all with regret and an immense loneliness. She looked up, her angel's face etched with worry. Jasper sent a flow of peace towards her, and she smiled hesitantly.

"Thank you," she said quietly, setting the book she'd been reading down on the table. "I hope you don't mind. I know you don't like your things being handled without your permission."

"It's fine, Rose," Jasper assured her, moving towards one of the shelves on the wall. He wondered vaguely if he should try to say something more, or if it would be best to keep his mouth shut. Sometimes with Rosalie, it was hard to tell.

He realized sadly that he wasn't in the mood for reading. He wanted desperately to go see Alice, but he didn't doubt that she had seen what he planned to do- the things he was capable of. Jasper drifted to the back of the room, a great wall of glass, unable to stand still. It was getting dark out, and he saw that his reflection looked haunted, aged, almost. Rosalie saw, too, apparently.

She stood, and the next thing Jasper knew she was standing next to him. "She saw, Jasper." Jasper closed his eyes. Of course she did.

"But she's not angry."

Jasper blinked, surprised at Rosalie's words. "She's not?" he asked dully.

"Of course not," Rosalie soothed, "She's very proud of you actually, Jasper. For resisting... She saw your plans changing, too. That you had decided not to do it. She says your control is improving."

"But still," he seethed, his voice bitter, his fury with himself apparent. "She wouldn't have needed to be proud with Emmett. Or you. Neither of you would have even had to exercise so much control to avoid killing him."

"That's not necessarily true," Rosalie muttered, "Though it's true I have no difficulties with the blood lust in this case."

Jasper almost flinched against Rosalie's sudden surge of hatred, and eased it back.

"You're just saying that, Rose. I almost did kill him. My own- I'm probably the worst brother in the world," he told her, his anguish obvious in his tone.

Rosalie gently touched Jasper's shoulder, and he turned to face her. "Jasper?" she asked concern taking over her features as she saw his face. "How bad is this? You usually don't have such a hard time."

Jasper couldn't answer. He only looked away. He couldn't bring himself to tell her that he was so weak it had taken nothing but the slightest trace of Edward's scent to nearly send him into a total frenzy.

"I don't think you're right, you know," she said quietly.

"Pardon?" He raised his eyebrows.

"You're the best brother I have, Jasper, that's for sure."

"Ugh. I would kill myself." He rolled his eyes teasingly. "If I were _your_ real brother-"

He was suddenly in a tight hug. Rosalie laughed, "You are Jasper. My real brother. In all the ways that count, you are."

Jasper put his arms around Rosalie, unsure why it was that he ever doubted her goodness. She was so easy to anger that he often forgot how sweet she really could be.

The doors opened suddenly, and Alice waltzed in. She studied Jasper and Rosalie and asked, "I'm not interrupting a touching, brother-sister moment, am I?"

"Nope," Rosalie answered, jauntily pulling herself out of Jasper's embrace and skipping towards Alice. "Just filching Jasper's wallet."

Jasper quickly moved his hand to his back pocket where his wallet had been moments before. It was gone. Rosalie grinned, waving it in the air. She handed it to Alice, whispering something so low that Jasper couldn't hear. He worried, for a moment, what she had said, but Alice laughed and nodded, and Rosalie left. He wanted to call out to her that she should stay, two separate concerns bobbing to his head. He knew that once she got a few feet farther from him, her current cheeriness, completely fabricated, would vanish.

The doors shut, and he found himself alone with Alice.

* * *

Edward and Bella were sound asleep, wrapped tightly in each other's embrace. Emmett watched unmoving from where he stood, leaning against the door frame.

This was part of what Rosalie wanted so badly. To sleep. To be able to have breath and a beating heart and the opportunity to have a family. Emmett was happy as a vampire. He loved the strength. He loved knowing that he wouldn't wake up every day and see his wife's face until one day he didn't wake up at all. He had longer than that. He had forever to love her. And for that he was immensely grateful.

But if he could give it all up, just to make her happy, he would. Emmett knew something about Rosalie that he thought the others, not even Edward perhaps, had figured out. He wasn't the smartest creature in the world, but he knew his princess, his angel, inside and out. Part of not having a soul meant you were exempt from all those goodies mentioned in the Bible- including the unconditional love from God.

_That_ was what she really wanted. What she needed. Rosalie needed to be loved, needed people to see her and adore her. Her vanity required that she be the center of the world, even though the reasons were slowly changing. Once, it had been because she thought people should be in awe of her beauty. Now Rosalie wanted the world to prove that she wasn't a monster. Emmett knew that the appeal children had was that they would be hers, her own, and they would love her for that. For being their mother- not because she was beautiful, or intelligent or fast. Just for being.

Unconditional love was exactly what Rosalie wanted. And Emmett was prepared to give up just about anything so she could have it.

* * *

"Are you okay?" Alice asked crossing the room.

Jasper sat slowly in the chair that Rosalie had just left. "Yes," he told her, his voice shaking like the trees in the wind.

Alice bounced into Jasper's lap, resting her head on his shoulder. "I love you."

"Oh, Alice, I love you, too."

Jasper buried his face in her hair, and she sighed, contented, but still worried. She knew Jasper probably felt horrible, even though he had done nothing. He had been strong enough to overcome his urges, but as usual, he clearly wanted to beat himself up for having those urges in the first place.

"We all have difficulties with it, Jasper. For some of us, control is a long time coming."

"Too long," Jasper intoned dully.

Alice shook her head. "You're getting stronger. You overcame it, Jasper, and I'm so proud of you. You're doing wonderfully."

"I feel like I've gone back steps. He wasn't even bleeding, Alice. He wasn't anywhere near me. The scent overwhelmed me, and he wasn't even in the same room."

Alice opened her mouth to reply. She stiffened, hearing his name in her mind. Someone was speaking, in the kitchen, only minutes from now. It was Rosalie. Alice sighed.

"Jasper," she said, standing fluidly. "I'll be back in a minute or two."

He watched her go, his gaze unfathomable.

The door swinging shut behind her, she muttered, "Don't think so negatively. I love you. Think about that."

He laughed, and Alice rushed off to find the rest of her family.

* * *

"I thought it might be a good time to discuss..." Rosalie lowered her voice. "Jasper."

Their eyes seemed judgmental to her. Deep and dark and scary. She knew this conversation was going to be hard to get through.

Carlisle sighed, "That isn't necessary, Rosalie."

It was obvious that Carlisle was unconcerned with Jasper's cravings for blood and the visions Alice had seen- as far as he was concerned, Jasper had conquered it, and the situation was dealt with. Across the kitchen island, Rosalie saw on Esme's expression that the sentiment was shared. She looked nervously at Emmett, grateful that only he knew her well enough to recognize her worry; he seemed doubtful, but he gripped her hand underneath the table, and she knew he would listen, and would try to help her get through to their parents.

"I was just with him," Rosalie continued, her voice firm.

"Jasper's home?" Esme asked, her face delighted.

"Yes." It wasn't Rosalie who answered. It was Alice. She sat gracefully in one of the chairs. Quietly, she added, "He's in the library. What's this about?"

"I think Jasper's more pulled by Edward's scent than he's letting on." Rosalie looked directly at Alice, who paused, glancing away. Then sighing, she nodded.

"I agree with Rosalie. He seems..." Her brow knotted. "More distressed than usual."

"He almost killed his own brother," Emmett said bluntly, but in a whisper. The last thing any of them wanted was for Jasper to overhear this. "Of course he's distressed."

"That's not what Alice means," Rosalie hissed.

"What exactly are you saying, Rose?" Carlisle regarded Rosalie with a gentle patience, and she felt herself relax under his gaze; Carlisle didn't need Jasper's gifts to have that effect on his family. It was easier to think straight and to feel safer when he was around.

"I think... Edward is like Bella. For Jasper, I mean. I think his blood is special."

There was a heavy silence. "That seems... a little ridiculous, Rose," Emmett murmured gently, but she noticed the shock and desperation in his voice.

He wished it could be so ridiculous. She knew the rest of her family agreed because they wished so, too.

"Is it?" she pressed. She turned to face each one of them in turn. "He was nowhere near Edward, and there was no blood in the room. Jasper could only have picked up the slightest trace of his scent- I've been in that room, you all have, too. The smell is _hardly there_, and yet Jasper's reaction was phenomenal."

"If she's right..." Alice was looking down at her lap. She glanced up, and her eyes met Rosalie's. "What are you suggesting we do about it? Jasper's being careful. He's staying in the back parts of the house."

Rosalie couldn't answer. What _was _she suggesting?

Esme said, "We do need to consider the danger this poses for Edward. But it's unfair to not let Jasper have a chance. If Edward's blood is so strong for him, then he's shown remarkable improvement. Edward always had good control, and it was difficult for him to resist Bella's blood. If Jasper's done the same so far, then it's safe to say he can continue on."

Carlisle agreed. Then he looked directly at Alice. "But if things get to hard for him... Edward can't protect himself anymore, and if Jasper loses control, and only one or two of us are around, we might not be able to either... There is no removing Jasper from our family, but we may have to ask him to spend a little time away from home."

Alice nodded, her lip trembling, "Of course. That will be fine. But I don't think it's going to be necessary. We _will _give him a chance."

"Yes, dear, of course," Esme soothed. "We believe in him, too. But it is important to remember that now Edward has..." Esme struggled with the right words. Rosalie knew exactly what Edward had that they didn't. She was hyper aware of it.

"_Life_," she filled in the blank.

Esme nodded. "Yes, and it can be taken away so easily."

The kitchen lapsed once more into silence. Minutes passed. Carlisle stood, and the others- save for Rosalie- followed his lead. Each of them fretting, the family separated, wandering off to their own places of solitude within the house.

And in the kitchen, Rosalie stared at her perfect, long fingers and at the granite countertop. Then, wrapping her fist around the ledge, she crushed it.


	9. Chapter 8

**Tangle of Thorns**  
_Chapter 8_

The bed was warm, and Edward's body was soft. The air in the room felt like winter static against her skin- harsh and cool- as she climed out from under the covers. She pulled her pants back on, the cotton feelings scratching in comparison to Edward's skin. She didn't want to go. Bella wanted to wait forever, staring at his face, his lips, his eyelids- wondering about the eyes beneath them. Had they changed? Bella wanted to shake Edward into consciousness, wanted to force him to look at her just so she could see.

Edward was the exact image of a sleeping angel- beautiful, untouchable, and entirely at peace. She hadn't the heart to disturb him; and she wasn't sure if she would be hurting him if she did. How much rest did Edward need? Was his body still recovering? It seemed like it, for in the many hours since she'd gotten there, Bella knew Edward had not woken once. Out the windows she saw the sun was now setting, hanging just below the clouds that partly covered the sky. The rain had become notihng more than a gently hissing mist over the trees.

Bella left sluggishly, passing through the house quietly, like a ghost; and feeling like one. Her mind, and definitely her heart, had been left behind with Edward. She felt like an empty shell.

She heard voices as she wandered down the marble staircase, and her attention returned to her, briefly driven from the thoughts of turning back that so consumed her.

Carlisle was saying, "It's important that we get all this into the open."

"All of what?" Jasper demanded in a growl. "There's _nothing_. I'm just not used to human scent being so thoroughly mixed in with everything else. That's all." His voice was pleading by the end of the statement.

"It's not thorough at all though, Jazz," Emmett cut in, his obnoxious voice unusually gentle. "There's barely any scent, and you're still struggling with it."

They knew Bella was there; they had to know. But Emmett kept speaking, ignoring her presence coming down the steps.

"We're not doing this out of cruelty," Emmett added, and Esme agreed: "No, of course not; we just want to help, Jasper. If it's truly a problem, then it would be easier if the whole family was on the same page."

The room became very still except for the beating of Bella's heart. Jasper sat with his back to her, but she could see the others' faces well: each stared at Jasper with a look of compassion and worry- except for Rosalie, Bella realized, who was looking at her. Glaring, actually. Rosalie was like the angel of death- beautiful, but Bella was frozen in terror beneath her deadly gaze.

"Rose," Emmett said softly, and he reached out to take her hand. They all turned away from Jasper (Bella saw him sag in relief) and looked at the glorious blonde, whose expression changed to innocence immediately. Her chin up, Rosalie stood and swept past Bella, slamming a door behind her. Bella felt a rush of air go past her towards the family, and the room changed instantly.

A growl erupted from someone's chest- Jasper's, Emmett's? Suddenly Emmett was next to Jasper, a hand on his shoulder, and the blond had sunk low into the cushions. Carlisle was there, too, murmuring something quietly to Jasper.

"Oh my," Esme sighed next to Bella, who hadn't seen her move at all. She held her hand out and Bella took it, remembering that once Edward's hand had been like this, hard and smooth like frozen marble. Esme led Bella outside, where the two of them sat down on the steps.

"I'm sorry," she started to slur, thinking that she should have been more careful, that she should have realized Jasper was already having a hard time with his control at the moment.

"It's not you, dear," Esme comforted her. "It's Edward; his scent is on you, and when Rosalie slammed that door, it drifted toward us. But you needn't feel guilty in the least."

"Does Edward's scent bother Jasper... a lot?" Bella asked, her heart pounding. Would Jasper hurt Edward? Was there really any danger, or could she trust them to look after him?

Esme smiled gently at her. "We're keeping a close eye on him... Go home and get something to eat, dear; you've been here all day."

Bella nodded numbly and stumbled to her truck, mumbling a goodbye. Adrenaline pounded through her veins. She remembered Jasper on her birthday, Jasper in the training sessions- fast and lethal. It never really occurred to her how deadly her second family was. They were the good ones. Of course it didn't really matter that they could tear a person apart in an instant-

...not until that person was the one she couldn't live without. Bella wondered if that was selfish. Was it wrong that she could have lived with Jasper if he had joyfully killed all the innocent citizens he could get his hands on, as long as it wasn't someone who belonged _to her_?

Was it wrong that she was calling him that? _Hers, _Edward was _hers_ only. Forget his family. His parents, his siblings, his friends. Bella felt a wave of possessiveness overcome her.

Anyways, she thought, what right did a bunch of monsters even have to be in his life at all? -Now that he had her, now that he had something _so much better_ than eternal Hell.

No, she corrected herself. Not that he had her.

Now that they had each other.

* * *

The growl was only light, but Sam reacted; muscles clenched and his stance shifted.

Embry wasn't even looking at him, and he never saw the defensive maneuver. Emily only sighed, gently knocking Sam's arm aside.

"Embry," she chided, "Come on."

"Yeah!" Jared encouraged on the other side of the room, half a hot dog coming out of his lips. "Don't be such a baby!"

Embry whimpered this time, burying his head further into the sofa cushions, smacking Emily's hand away. Not enough to hurt her, of course. Never enough to hurt her. But Sam stiffened once more.

Emily shook her head.

"It' just a little bit of cough syrup!" she insisted, trying to coax him into swallowing some.

"It's sick; and I don't need it. Really, I'm fine."

He sat up, trying to prove his health. To Emily, pack mother? To Sam, pack leader?

Or maybe to himself?

No one was convinced. His eyes were rimmed with red. His voice was hoarse. And he couldn't phase no matter how hard he tried. Paul had punched him in the face; and though Embry was furious, nothing changed.

At least, nothing of his physical body changed. Right now, although Embry didn't know it, his entire world was transforming.

* * *

The light was dim in the room, no more than a soft, thin glow- a single crack to one side, slanting across the floor. The air was cool and sweet in his throat, every breath feeling refreshing. He reached up to brush the hair out of his face, peering into the darkness his eyes couldn't penetrate, but only ended up flinching away from his own cold touch. Instinctively, he curled in upon himself, cradling his right hand- which he realized now was freezing and numb, all the way up to his shoulder. A cold stripe of skin stretched from there to the left side of his waist, and he pulled the thick blankets that lay atop of him closer, preserving the fragile warmth of the rest of his body.

Edward knew something was wrong. Was this what a vampire's death felt like? What was happening?

Edward had never been bitten after his initial transformation. Was that what he felt now? Was this immecold stinging simply an area where one of his kind had sunk their teeth into him?

Whatever it was, it was fading fast, and Edward sat slowly up in bed, relieved that the feeling was going away. His neck felt oddly uncomfortable. He pulled a hand up to it, touching it gently, looking for grooves in his rock hard skin, indication of a hole that may have been there. He found none of that, but against the heel of his palm, something jumped under his hand.

Edward stiffened. Something had moved inside him; and now suddenly his knee was causing him pain. He stretched his leg toward the end of the bed, but it felt as if his body was tightening. He moved it no further.

Something jumped again beneath his hand. And a second later- again. At regular intervals, his neck stretched, growing so slightly to accommodate the thing, and then shrunk down again. Edward was scared now, and the moving- what? creature? What was it? Was it alive? The skin pushed forward quicker now, speeding up at just the rate that Edward's worry increased.

Edward whimpered, pulling his hand away from his throat and whatever it was moving around beside- or maybe even _inside- _his veins.

"Edward?"

He looked up surprised, not realizing there had been anyone else with him. Carlisle stood just a few feet from him– appearing different than Edward had ever seen him, though he couldn't determine how– and looking at him with a look of mixed emotions. Esme stood in the doorway, smiling nervously. The two exchanged a glance.

"Well," Esme started. "It looks like we have a lot to talk about."

* * *

"You were ill..." Carlisle had begun, slowly.

The rest of the story tumbled out much faster, and Edward was shocked at first. Scared, too. But then things seemed to sink in, and his emotions were so strong they filled the entire house: happiness. Pure unbridled joy sung through the walls and seeped into the floorboards. Edward wandered through the upper floors, in awe of how different everything looked and smelled. He jumped in horror when Emmett sneaked up behind him, but ended up laughing in delight at the surprise.

The family was in the throes of celebration. Except for two at least, and how fitting that they should be miserable together.

The Hale twins, identical in their misery. Rosalie angrily perched on an armchair in the library, jealousy and resentment intrinsical on her face.

And Jasper, wandering through the house as well, finally stopping in a hallway and standing with his hand resting on a side table, still like the rock his skin had become; but unlike Edward, the world was no different now. It was just the same as always, except that it was farther away and blurry. He barely registered anything, his thoughts lost almost to himself. Jasper didn't hear Carlisle talking in long medical terms to Edward about what he thought had happened while Esme offered tiny opinions here and there. He didn't hear Emmett's footsteps on the floor. He didn't hear the nearing heartbeat.

But the smell, he could never ignore.

The door flung open and Edward stepped into the hallway. For a brief moment, one so tiny time barely noticed it, the world was clear. Jasper was hyper aware of Emmett behind him, the fly on the wall, a drop of rain landing on a leaf outside...

He felt the table becoming a pulp of sawdust in his hand. It was one of few sensations that remained properly in focus. All of Jasper's other senses zoomed in on Edward, attuned to him as if they were programmed just for that purpose, as if they were designed to lock onto Edward specifically; Jasper saw only his veins pulsing just below his skin, heard only his heart's beating, smelled only his perfect blood.

Unthinkingly he stepped forward- even as part of his mind cautioned him to turn and flee- bringing himself one step closer to what moments before had been his brother, but was now only his prey. As he moved, his family did, too. Esme appeared at Edward's side, ushering him out of the hallway, and Jasper felt two massive arms encircling him. He tried to take another step forward, towards the door Edward had just left through but the relaxed grip became a tight snare as he tried. Jasper growled, and felt himself suddenly being squeezed: the world snapped back into place.

"Easy, Jasper," Emmett said, spinning him around and giving him a gentle shove in the other direction.

Feeling like he was being torn in two, Jasper propelled himself to the window at the end of the hallway, throwing it open and breathing deeply of the fresh air, sucking it in like it was the only thing in the world he could depend upon.

Maybe it was.

* * *

For the first hour or two, being human had been the greatest thing. Even those brief scary moments with Jasper had been something Edward had moved on from surprisingly fast. But Edward was very quickly becoming frustrated with human life. Carlisle was confident his son was just stressed out– after all, even happy news came too fast sometimes.

Esme wasn't taking the sudden change in countenance as well, frantic that her son's health would be destroyed if something didn't change in the next few moments.

"You need to eat!" she cried hoarsely. "You'll die if you don't eat! Stop being so ridiculous, Edward!"

"Yes," a cool voice said in the kitchen doorway, behind Edward, "Maybe you'll die."

"Rosalie, that's enough," Carlisle told his daughter in words so low as to breeze past Edward's ears undetected.

"I can't eat this," Edward repeated, though he did, in all fairness, pick up the spoon and try again. It was only soup; they hadn't wanted to give him something too thick for his stomach to handle.

But, still, he claimed it was too much.

"Not to mention," he mumbled, "It's disgusting. This tastes horrible. And–"

He cut himself off, screwing up his nose, his eyebrows folding together, and pushing the bowl away with his hands.

"I can't eat this," Edward gasped again, closing his eyes as if he could block out the nausea with darkness. He whimpered, then stood abruptly, overturning a chair. Stumbling forward, Edward convulsed briefly.

He threw up on Rosalie's new shoes. Then he fainted.


	10. Chapter 9

**Tangle of Thorns  
**_Chapter 9_

It was a good thing Edward fainted. This way he missed the tantrum Rosalie threw afterwards.

She stomped out of the kitchen (breaking a floorboard or two as she went).

"Why are we feeding him at all?" she demanded. "Why don't we just _let him starve_?"

Rosalie's voice was a high, angelic, and furious; it echoed throughout the entire house.

"He's lived his hundred years. No one's gonna care if he dies- except _Bella_. He doesn't actually have a family! His parents are dead. His friends are all dead. His cousins and uncles and aunts and- They're all dead! He should be, too!"

Emmett followed along cautiously, trying in vain to soothe her. Everyone else- including Jasper, in his library, head perked up at the sudden noise- did nothing. They all knew that there was no sense in trying, not really, and knew likewise that there was no sense in getting upset over the things she said.

"She doesn't even consider him her family anymore?" Alice asked, her voice low. She knew Rosalie would be angry- they all knew. But somehow this sort of reaction wasn't what she'd expected. Rosalie was cold, harsh, but she didn't do much screaming. Usually she just dug and dug, putting her insults exactly where she knew it would hurt you most.

"She has the right to be upset," Carlisle murmured quietly, hoisting Edward into his arms. "Don't try and smother her into seeing a good side to this, Alice. I know you're happy with the life you have, and you're happy for Edward and Bella, but remember that things aren't the same for her."

Alice nodded, and Carlisle drifted out of the room, carrying Edward upstairs. A lamp smashed somewhere overhead, and Rosalie cursed angrily at– well, no one in particular.

She felt Esme's hand resting on her shoulder. "Don't worry, dear," her mother sighed. "Things will turn out alright... Perhaps you should go let Jasper know what's happening. It might be for the best to keep everyone informed."

"Of course," Alice said, her voice lifting. Jasper could figure out on his own that Rosalie was upset. He didn't need to know of the event that had made her finally snap. Esme and she both knew that.

But Esme was right in saying that going to see Jasper was for the best, at least where Alice was concerned. It didn't take a mother's intuition to know, but it sometimes took a mother's love to say it out loud.

* * *

Bella's knuckles cracked as she flexed her fingers experimentally, stretching her arms out towards Edward's face. An embarrassed, girly smile spread across her face as her fingertips brushed his high cheek bones– not changed a bit by the transformation of ever lasting monster to human. His features looked the same– beautiful and otherworldly, but Bella could feel the difference as she touched him gently.

Her skin was colder than his, and the warmth caused a familiar heat focus in Bella's cheeks. Flushed with happiness, she leaned impulsively down to kiss his nose. Something scratched softly along her cheeks, and looking to the side she realized it was Edward's eyelashes. She gasped as they fluttered apart, snapping her neck back reflexively for a better look– only to be pulled forward again, trapped in a desperate kiss she was entirely sure she didn't want to escape from.

"_Bella_;" her name fell from Edward's lips to land upon her own, muffled as their mouths pressed urgently together.

The kiss ended too soon– exactly the same way as it had for as long as Bella had known Edward. As he sat up slowly, cringing against some pain unknown to Bella, and yanked her easily down into his lap, she wondered why, thinking about the abrupt end to the kiss, and blushed when she became overly conscious of a world of intimacies suddenly available to them.

"Bella," Edward murmured again, lips curved against her cheek. She stared at his arms, wrapped firmly around her waist. She traced his veins with only the edge of her nail, noting that they were much harder than his flesh, his legs, his lips– just the way it should be for a human.

Edward's wet lips stuck to her dry cheeks, emphasizing the skin of her face where he didn't touch. Bella giggled with a sort of joy she once saw as being beneath her. Edward was so much to her, a soulmate, a lifelong companion– but for a brief moment she felt like nothing more than a little schoolgirl with a crush, and the rush of ecstasy went straight to her head, making her dizzy and warm.

Edward's finger moved along the tiny imperfections of her jawbone, and at her chin the rest of his fingers unclenched, his entire hand cupping her face– and turning it towards him.

Bella shifted, knees spread out to either side of Edward's waist. Their faces were so close they were touching, and her jaw dropped, lips open upon his chin.

Shaking she reached up to rub the circles under his eyes. Unwilling, she stared at her own nails–

"Bella?"

She bit her lip, and let her gaze travel just an inch higher. Straight into a circle of vibrant green.

* * *

"Rosalie," Emmett sighed. "Rose, baby, come on."

He placed his hand on her shoulder, massive grip enveloping much of her collarbone.

"No," she wheezed furiously. She wasn't going back in that house, and Emmett knew there were hardly words to change her mind.

Bella was there. The second the sound of Edward and Bella's happy banter drifted down to Rosalie's ears, she had gone screaming from the house, as loud and terrifying as a banshee but ten times as dangerous.

"Rosalie, I know you're angry," Emmett began warily, wondering if this would land him as much in her hatred as the rest of the family was right then. "But you know you don't really–"

"You're wrong, Emmett," Rosalie told him, her voice almost as dead as it was alive with anger.

"You're wrong," she repeated, looking, finally, into his face, her beautiful eyes deep and consuming. "I wish he were dead, Emmett."

She stared at him unblinkingly, and Emmett knew it was true.

* * *

Jasper buried his head in his knees, his forehead warm from the sun that just barely reached it, but his legs frigid from a century of cursed time.

He shook violently, feeling colder than he ever had– and at the same time feeling the most intense of heats in his throat. He may have been a heroin addict, twitching from want and–

No, Jasper thought angrily, not from want. _Need_. He needed blood, blood that didn't come from the animals that roamed the forest, or from any of his past victims.

But he couldn't take anything from the person whose blood he needed. Every time he thought of giving in and spiriting Edward away to feed in as much relative peace he could manage– outside of his own head– his stone heart felt as if it were alive again, beating a horrified tempo against his chest.

But Jasper's heart couldn't beat, and further, he couldn't hurt Edward. He couldn't imagine the guilt, the pain, the–

"She was right," Alice said, her wide eyes focused almost eerily on his face.

"Who?" he squeaked, not understanding, and then thinking, _**was**__ right, or __**will be**__, Alice?_

She rose and stretched like an animal, her cold hard spine cracking as she did.

"Who are you talking about?" he asked as she began walking away from him.

Alice repeated, "She was right," but this time added to the end– "You're obsessed."

* * *

"Well," Edward carried on in a conversational tone, his smile bright and his hands resting gently on either side of her hips. "Jasper hasn't been hunting awhile... There was one scary moment, but, as you know, he just needs to feed and I'm sure he'll be fine..."

* * *

"Haven't been hunting in a while?" Jasper asked through clenched teeth.

Jasper's library had become the official meeting space.

Edward's scent permeated the rest of their home, and Jasper was left to slink through the back parts of the house only, an animal in the shadows. Rosalie stood immobile against the glass windows, Emmett cross-legged on the floor beside her, and Alice sat on the arm of Jasper's chair.

"Is that what he thinks?" The blond's fury seeped through his control, filling the room slowly. He reigned it in, pulling it back as he became aware that he was fueling others who were already angry in their own right. His eyes narrowed as Carlisle and Esme, standing by the door, exchanged furtive glances and hung their heads. Rephrasing, he growled, "That's what you _told_ him."

"We didn't want to scare him," Esme explained, looking at Jasper with pleading eyes.

Rosalie opened her mouth at the same time as two others did, but Carlisle was faster than all of them.

"It doesn't matter... Edward is right, anyways. You would be better off if you had something in you." His voice softer than his previous clipped tone, he said, "You need to hunt, Jasper."

Emmett quipped, "Me too, I'll go with."

They each looked around the room, meeting black eyes everywhere they turned. None were used to restricting their thirst for so long.

_Maybe_, Jasper reflected, _that's the only reason I didn't kill Edward when he was right there_. _Too weak to fight Emmett off_.

He wanted to think it was his own mental strength, but the moment it occurred to him, he knew it was his lack of physical strength.

"Well," Esme sighed, "Someone has to be here with Edward. We can't all go at once."

"Sure we can. We'll just bring Edward with us. Let him loose in the range where Jasper's–"

"_Rosalie, stop this instant_." Carlisle's voice was full of authority even Rosalie's anger could not overcome. She shrugged, looking haughtily out the window she stood at.

Alice ventured, in the silence that followed, "We _could_ bring him. We could go hunting somewhere with a hotel nearby, and some of us could take turns watching."

The proposal sunk in. Only one of them needed to consider it for a decision to be made, but each turned it over in their minds anyways.

"Yes," Carlisle consented. "That will work. Alice, Esme, and I can stay with him in rotations..."

"I can, too," Emmett told his father, and Rosalie smacked his head, but he didn't change his mind.

Esme smiled softly– "Thank you, Emmett."

Jasper twisted his gaze around the room, watching his family interact, and noting with a sickening dread how different this scene was from others before it.

"So," Carlisle vocalized in a final tone, opening the door and stepping into the hallway. "First thing tomorrow. Two cars. Esme and I will take Edward. The rest of you–" He looked directly at Jasper, and then at Rosalie– "Will take another vehicle. And none will attempt to change the arrangements. Understood?"

He could have been a father scolding his children, but every "Cullen" heard the seriousness in his voice. They all knew that infringement of his orders would not be taken lightly. He wasn't _Daddy_ anymore.

He was coven leader this time, and none would disobey unless they were ready for the punishment that followed.


	11. Chapter 10

**Tangle of Thorns  
**_Chapter 10  
_

The wind was warm, blowing wispy, endlessly stretching clouds in front of the sun. The afternoon may have been described as dull; the temperature was mild, the light was thin and the sky was white on grey on white except for a single patch of blue near the horizon. There was a general silence hanging over the gas station, though many people were coming in and coming out.

No one noticed the one spectacular image- the group of beautiful people, faintly sparkling in the corner of the parking lot, and the exasperated, determined boy at the center.

"I don't need to eat anything," Edward repeated again. "I'm fine."

"Edward," Esme reasoned, "You need to think straight here. It might take some getting used to, but you must start somewhere. Maybe try something light."

She looked tentatively into her son's eyes, her expression gentle and supportive; Edward felt like he was being watched by a- no, this wasn't true. His instincts told him he was being observed by something infinitely more dangerous than a hawk. He shook his head adamantly, turning away from her intense gaze.

"This is ridiculous!" Esme cried, turning desperately to her husband and then back to Edward. "You'll starve yourself at this rate!"

"Right," Rosalie scoffed, turning on her heel and walking away. Even Edward heard her mutter afterward, "We should be so lucky."

Carlisle was the only one who effectively ignored Rosalie as she stormed over to the car to join Jasper- who had the windows rolled up and the doors shut tight, creating as much of an air tight barrier as he possibly could. Still staring at his son, Carlisle pursed his lips, and Edward could sense that he was about to say something.

"I'm not hungry," he interjected quickly, just as his sister was opening the car door. "Really, I'm not."

A sharp voice met Edward's ears, and he snapped his head to the side to see Jasper standing next to Rosalie, tensed but shaking.

"Well _I _am. Hurry the hell up so we can leave."

Jasper's eyes were wild and the light wind cast his hair askew, creating a menacing image. Edward shifted uncomfortably on his feet, arguing almost unintelligibly with himself. His human subconscious wanted him to run, to run far and fast- But Edward stayed strong at his spot. He knew his family; he had been there, in the same position as Jasper, thirsty and a little too close to a beating heart. He had felt the same urges, _and_ the same desire to be true to his coven's values. There was nothing to be afraid of. No matter how thirsty Jasper was, the others were here. They would keep Jasper grounded.

The wind shifted directions ever so slightly, blowing against Edward's other side.

Too fast for Edward's eyes to register, Jasper disappeared once more into the car, the door slamming loudly, defining the quietness that fell over the group.

Edward ventured finally, "Just how long has it been since Jasper hunted?"

He waited, but none answered.

* * *

Emmett lifted Edward- kicking and screaming- gently and turned him around, directing him back towards the car. Edward turned and stared haughtily directly into his burly brother's face.

"I'm not staying in this _car_ for a second longer! No one is hunting anywhere _near_ here, Emmett. I'll be fine."

"We can't leave the clearing, Edward," Emmett intoned for what may have been the tenth time. "Carlisle said quite explicitly that you were to remain here."

Edward clenched his jaw, and Emmett rolled his eyes, wondering why he'd volunteered for this. Oh, right. He hadn't realized Edward would be so set on doing something so irrationally stupid.

"My legs are cramping."

"Huh?" Emmett asked.

Edward sighed with frustration evident in his eyes. "_My legs are cramping_. It's a human thing. I need to walk."

"So walk here," Emmett told him simply, flopping down on the ground. He glanced around, taking in the birds, the trees, the sound of animals hundreds of yards away. He looked disinterestedly at his own sparkling skin and then back up to Edward's face, which was now taken with a very different expression.

"Emmett?" Edward asked. "You would know if someone was anywhere around though. I wouldn't go far, and you would be right with me. I'm bored. Please, Emmett? _Please!_"

Emmett considered this, acknowledging that what Edward said was true. Besides, the only member of the family they needed to worry about was Jasper, and he had agreed- quite tersely- on the way there that he would move as far away as he could before hunting. Lithely getting to his feet, Emmett shrugged, motioning for Edward to lead the way. His brother bounded happily ahead of him, eyes bright and cheeks flushed from the heat. Emmett sometimes felt strange hunting in Tennesse- a sense of foreboding and danger overtook him, and his vague but terrifying memories of his final human moments clung acidly to the front of his mind.

But, he reminded himself constantly, this time he could take any bear that wanted to try him. No animal could defeat Emmett Cullen, no matter how strong they were.

Emmett strolled easily along behind Edward, constantly on the alert for signs that any member of their family was nearby.

Emmett paused briefly, looking back as Edward stumbled down the hill to the valley below them. It was stretched out like a gaping hole in the ground, the earth rising on all sides to form steep walls. Emmett could easily glance across to the level ground on either end of the valley. The wind was blowing rather obnoxiously now, causing the trees to sway frantically on the top of the slope across from Emmett; like hands motioning him forward, fingers crooked and long.

He remained where he stood. Emmett had long had a thing against any area which could be easily noted as a valley. He had always equated them with death, perhaps because of the famous 23rd psalm he had heard so many times.

He shivered, calling out to Edward to turn back. Edward turned and began stumbling upwards to him, so Emmett pivoted and rounded the next corner, wanting to erase the image of Edward so far below him, a tiny figure in the middle of the hole in the earth.

* * *

Edward didn't know what it was that made him turn around, but turn he did. The shadow of the trees seemed like dark claws reaching for him; the wind was a hot breath down his neck; and the figure standing at the top of the hill was more still than the ground itself.

Edward's eyesight could not see every detail of Jasper's face, but he could make out the dark posture, the tense stance.

Edward stumbled backwards, self-preservation overshadowing his sympathetic thoughts for his brother.

"Emmett!" he called hoarsley, his feet curling up when he tried to move.

Edward spun 'round, looking aghast at the slope in front of him. Behind him, Jasper moved like a serpent towards the edge of the valley, and 105 years stretched themselves closer to their end.

* * *

Emmett heard Edward's heart race. He heard him calling his name. He spun quickly, rounding the wall of trees so he could see Edward– and there was Jasper, getting closer every second. A breeze gusted past Emmett, and he knew just how Jasper had managed to pick up Edward's scent while hunting, at the same time as he wondered how he hadn't managed to pick up the sound of Jasper's approach.

He stepped forward, hardly worried: he was much nearer to Edward than Jasper was. But he knew the danger of underestimating Jasper, and took strides forward.

Then he remembered something: beautiful black eyes framed by the whitest skin. Blonde hair tumbling down her waist.

_I wish he were dead, Emmett_.

His mind reeled as he paused, watching the blond move closer to Edward, who was rooted to the spot. Rosalie had been angry and resentful since Edward's change. He wondered if she would ever recover from the pain of seeing her deepest wish granted– to someone else. Would this change things? Would Edward's death make her happier?

Perhaps she would see that being human wasn't so great. _Life_, in its human form, was taken away so easily. Emmett wished desperately that Rosalie could see the beauty of being what they were– the wonder in being certain that they could continue living together forever.

On the other hand, maybe Rosalie would realize too late that she didn't want their brother to hurt in order for them to be happy. Emmett doubted that. He knew that Rosalie wasn't lying when she said Edward's death would make her happy.

...He also knew that she was a good person, whether others saw it or not. And given more time, Rosalie would learn to love her brother again.

As long as he was alive for her to love.

He also knew that Edward dying might make things better for Rosalie, but only at first. Someday she would learn to resent his death. She would be miserable again. The rest of the family would be broken... and furious.

Especially if it was Emmett's fault.

He knew as well that Edward had always, no matter how much the boy may have hated it, been his little brother in a way Alice could never be his little sister, and in a way Jasper could never be so close to him. He'd always been the sibling Emmett felt protective of, even if Edward was so positive he could protect himself.

And Emmett knew this: Even when Rosalie hated him, Edward was still that little brother.

Therein lie his decision. Someone might want Edward dead, but Emmett wasn't that someone. He became suddenly aware of the proximity his brother had gained in the seconds he debated with himself. With a gasp, he lunged forward.

But Emmett had hesitated too long.

Jasper was closer.

* * *

There was a sound like crashing boulders. Edward felt pain in his face and his chest, and then his entire body when he collided with the ground and rolled haphazardly into a tree. He heard the snarling and growling someone else might have put to wild dogs.

His head lolled to the side, his eyelashes fluttering, and saw Jasper flailing beneath Emmett wildly, grabbing for him. Edward noted dully that Jasper had already fed– his eyes were a light amber, but the pupils were black and massive.

He felt something trickle down his forehead and towards his eyes. There was a familiar shocked feeling from one shoulder to his waist.

And the world went red, and then it went black.


	12. Chapter 11

**Tangle of Thorns**  
_Chapter 11  
_

Bella saw Edward's face reflected in every drop of rain slipping across her window, which she glared at relentlessly, hoping, perhaps, to see two marble hands sliding through the inch of open space to push up the glass the rest of the way. She heard his gentle humming above the buzz of the washing machine; water drumming against the rooftop sounded suddenly like footsteps.

When she closed her eyes she thought of him, his skin twisting the light from the sun to make it a thing with life of its own. In Bella's mind, when the glittering effect faded, Edward's skin remained glowing, though in a different way. Instead of a glamorous sparkle, a gentle red colouring seeped into Edward's cheeks. Bella's heart nearly stopped and it took her the briefest of moments to decide which image she found more alluring. Her mind followed a giddy, romantic trail of thought, and (not for the first time) she found herself imagining Edward experiencing other human reactions which made _her_ blush from her head not quite to her toes, but most certainly to her inner thigh- at least, if the heat gathering there was any indication.

Sadly, Bella doubted that she and Edward would be pushing the newly-laid boundaries any time soon.

Sick with worry and confusion, the Cullens had turned into the apprehensive baby sitters from Hell, unsure of what they should do but blundering on ahead regardless. She could easily visit him at his house, but Edward was caged within the tall white mansion- and there was no way she was getting intimate with a handful of nosy vampires listening in.

Bella thought sadly of her next two days- both of which would have to be spent without Edward because of his family's need to supervise every step he took.

"Relax, Bella," Edward had told her. "They're all dealing with a lot of stress right now. Give them time to calm down." Then he appeared thoughtful, leaning in to ask quietly, "Was I this bad?"

Bella had laughed breathlessly, wishing his lips were just a few inches closer to hers...

"You would have joined forces with Jane before letting me come with you on a hunting trip."

"True," Edward chuckled; he added more seriously: "They truly believe this is for the best, and I must say I trust that judgment. Carlisle knows what he's doing... He's got centuries of experience behind him."

Bella couldn't argue with that. Still, she knew, Edward wouldn't have let her go if he'd been the one hunting. Then again, he always had been too hard on himself. Bella firmly believed he could control his animal instincts just fine. If it were her life on the line, she wouldn't have minded the possibility of danger.

It wasn't Bella's life though.

She pushed the thought away. Edward trusted his family. She pictured their smiling faces: Esme, Carlilse, Alice, Emmett... Rosalie... Jasper, and wondered, shuddering, why she couldn't trust them too.

* * *

Alice's vision wasn't focused upon her brother or his injures; Edward was a softer background figure, cloaked in fog and writhing vaguely. What Alice saw, in much sharper detail, was Jasper. Jaser, with crazy, golden eyes, flailing beneath Emmett and screaming like he was back from Hell, the two of them locked in a battle of strength and will. The scene moved up, up, stretching towards Heaven, until Alice's eyes were a haze of blue skies and white clouds. As if she were being flipped over, Alice was looking suddenly down, where she saw the entirety of the tiny valley, three forms doing their own mad dance on a single slope. She saw the shining metals of their cars parked not far away, an unused setting, empty and peripherhal.

Then she was falling, falling and screaming, crying, shouting as the wind whipped past her... screaming as she lurched through the forest on nimble feet.

* * *

The sun was blazing. It streaked a late evening yellow upon the forest floor, leaving a trail of warmth across the cold, wet ground. Also flitting through the trees was one of the most dangerous predators walking the earth, a long track of his own spread out behind him: broken branches, frightened animals, and air diffused with a cold, cold presence.

Another might have attributed the strange, shrill sound which made the leaves tremble to the call of an exotic bird; Carlisle knew better. To the forest, Carlisle was a passing blur; to him, every leaf, every twig, every bug in the air was of the sharpest detail. He heard every sound– the light fall of his feet, the heartbeat of a distant creature, the flapping of a bird's wings. But none of these was the sound he was racing toward;

and none were so beautiful, or so terrifying, as his daughter's scream.

* * *

Rosalie arrived at the scene later than Carlisle and Alice; by the time she broke through the trees, hair flying and perfect lips twisted with a smirk, Edward was already sitting up in the car, Carlisle kneeling on the ground before him, stitching a gash in his forehead. Alice fidgeted and Emmett hunched protectively around Jasper- curled in a tiny ball as far from Edward as the clearing allowed.

Rosalie's glee faded as she observed the expression on Emmett's face, and she tripped lightly to his side, resting a hand comfortingly on his shoulder. She asked without words what was wrong, her gaze a question of itself. He looked away from her as if ashamed, declaring in a wretched voice, "I should have heard Jasper coming. It's all my fault."

Rosalie soothed, "Don't be ridiculous, Emmett. You couldn't have been expected to hear him." She added, only a second later, "Jasper's an excellent _hunter_."

The pathetic mess that was her brother flinched where he sat on the ground, and Rosalie felt herself cringe, too. Jasper hadn't done anything to hurt her, and he wasn't someone who deserved her wrath.

Jasper mumbled, "It's not Emmett's fault," probably using the last of a breath he'd been holding in, and Rosalie felt her guilt increase. Leave it to her to make him blame himself even more. She wished desperately for a better outlet for her anger, but there was only one person she really wanted to get at- better protected than the Queen herself. Edward probably had the best bodyguards anyone on earth ever would.

Rosalie struggled with apologies, wondering what she should say, if anything, when someone else beat her to the cut.

"It's no one's fault but mine. I should have stayed in the clearing like I was told. Don't worry about it, Jasper." Rosalie thought Edward's voice was annoyingly cheery, even though his words were slurred and his eyes half shut with pain.

She studied his face (noting particularly the blood that ran down his cheek, and thinking wistfully of the warmth and the possibilities within its bright red colouring). She wondered how he hadn't figured out how great a danger to him Jasper really was. After all, though Edward had many faults, Rosalie acknowledged that (for the most part) stupidity wasn't one of them. She considered letting Edward know just what his situation was, hoping she could scare him into a fit without saying anything too insulting to Jasper.

She patted Emmett's arm thoughtlessly, and he flinched in towards her, his golden eyes haunted. Unable to bear the sight of him so upset, she glanced to Carlisle, who, she realized, was staring at her from the corner of his eyes even as he sewed Edward up.

"Rosalie," he said evenly, his tone as polite as ever. "Since you're in such a helpful mood-" His mouth twisted sarcastically, but, turned at an angle as he was, Rosalie never noticed. Only Edward saw the expression on his face full on. "Why don't you help Jasper out of here?"

Nodding without a word, Rosalie bent down and lifted her brother into her arms. She strode purposefully away, deciding that, anyway, Edward probably wouldn't care if he did know how desperate Jasper was to make a snack out of him. When did Edward's own safety _ever_ matter to him? The only thing important enough for Edward's consideration was dearest _Isabella_, as always. She was the only thing he cared about. He loved her fanatically- for her annoying clumsiness, her stubborn streak, her goodness. As if she was the only person on earth who could love 'a monster.' As if no one else had the capacity to see past their partner's flaws the way she did.

Rosalie listened intently to the sounds of quiet conversation behind her, easily picking out Emmett's deep voice. She reconsidered what she'd thought earlier- maybe Edward _was_ as tragically stupid as he seemed.

After all, she reflected sadly, if no one could forgive the way Bella could, she would be alone.

* * *

The moon rose slowly above the horizon, slipping above the trees more silently than the wind. Jasper stared at at the the forest spread like a thick blanket at the foot of the mountain. He saw every hill and dip nearby, and in the distance, the only one that caught his mind.

He imagined he could see the splash of red on the grassy slope, but knew that it was actually too far away.

Jasper had been able to hear Emmett's approach for the last few seconds, but pretended obstinately that it was an animal wandering through the night. He tried concentrating on the more natural sounds of the night- but he only heard animals running away, wind and the trickle of a tiny stream. There was none of the peace of the woods that a human would expect. Of course, Jasper had learned long ago that the world and its creatures were never at peace when his kind was around.

He saw Emmett's eyes first, glowing in the darkness with the light of the moon. He stood tall and unmoving when he reached the rock where Jasper sat, uncertain and unbearably lonely. Jasper wanted to lift Emmett out of his worry, but found himself too depressed to help his brother.

"Don't blame yourself," Emmett finally said. "I could have stopped you."

Jasper looked up sharply. "Then why didn't you?"

Emmett trembled, appearing more frightened and upset than anyone so strong as him had right to be. "For a minute," he ventured, "It seemed like things would be better if he were dead."

A silence fell over them. Every beast in the forest had fled too far away for Jasper to hear, and the wind was still. He heard only the running water, and he fantasized for a brief moment that it, too, was fleeing from him and his brother.

"For Rosalie, you mean."

Emmett didn't reply.

"Things would have been better for Rosalie."

Black curls shook with the nod of a head. "Yes."

Perhaps Emmett was scared to say anything else. Perhaps there was nothing more to say. Jasper buried his face in the rough fabric of his jeans.

"I think, if Edward was seriously hurt, I would... Not be able to handle that," he confessed, unsure of his feelings, and even more unsure of why he was telling this to Emmett. He wondered if his brother could even comprehend the weight and the honesty of that statement.

Emmett stared at the moon, his face even paler than it was. He told Jasper, "Maybe that's for the best. It will make you stronger."

Jasper knew by hearing Emmett's voice, by seeing his bright eyes, by feeling the wave of conviction, that he meant every word. And, he knew, thinking of his crumbling resolve, and the guilt that grew even as he insisted to his family he would avoid Edward, that Emmett was wrong.

* * *

"Is it normal?" Esme asked, wringing her plaid shirt in her hands.

"Is what normal?" Carlisle replied, looking away from the dark road and to her face.

She sighed, glancing to the back of the car, where Edward was stretched across the seats. "He seems to sleep all the time. Is it because he's still sick, or-"

Carlisle cut her off gently. "He's still probably recovering. A vampire wakes up from their transformation with a stronger body, but for Edward it's the opposite. His body is probably still trying to catch up on functioning."

He paused. "And he did take quite the hit to his head today."

Esme flinched. She wondered if Jasper was okay, and glanced into the rearview mirror. The other car followed them like a shadow; she couldn't see through the tinted windows, and felt like she was gazing into dead eyes.

Carlisle grinned suddenly, a look of compulsive happiness she rarely saw on his face.

"As well," he began in a strangely formal tone, glancing at her slyly. "He _is_ a teenager."

The sound of a heartbeat filled the car, but no human would have been able to hear it- particularly not over the lofty laughter of two pleased parents.


	13. Chapter 12

**Tangle of Thorns  
**_Chapter 12  
_

Emmett heard the echoes of an almost empty house– Jasper downstairs, his footsteps pacing at the same rate as Edward's heart was beating not ten feet from where Emmett stood. And Edward rolling over, sighing in frustration. He heard Edward flipping to the next page on his calendar, and turned to see him staring blankly at the large 20 in front of him.

He imagined he heard Edward thinking that Bella's birthday was under a month from now... and that their wedding was weeks past.

None of these was what he was listening for: intently his ears searched out the crunch of wheels on gravel and twigs.

"You know, Edward," he began cautiously, "Maybe you should listen to some music or go play piano."

Edward had done neither of these things since that day when Emmett had stood beside him and heard his loneliest composition, and he looked now at his brother with a confused expression.

"Why would I do that?" he asked in a lifeless tone.

"It seems to comfort you. I know you like to think of yourself as above the material world–" Emmett wondered if this was still true even as he said it. "But we all have something that cheers us, and you might–"

"What's yours?" Edward cut him off with a smirk. "One of Rosalie's bras?"

Emmett paused, debating with himself. Thinking of the expression on his brother's face, he wandered from Edward's room and to his own without saying a word. There he reached deep into the drawer of things that were his and his alone– his few personal items which even Rosalie didn't disturb. She had sworn not to touch all of them, but there was only one she didn't know about.

He picked it up hesitantly, and, faster than before, headed back to Edward. He stood before him, cradling it gently behind his back.

Emmett shifted uncomfortably beneath Edward's tired but scrutinizing gaze. His eyes prickled and his neck felt warm with the memory of human embarrassment from so many years ago. He had never told anyone about this. But Emmett knew he could trust Edward. He leaned in conspiratorially.

"This," he said, grinning wolfishly with his newly found confidence and holding his treasure out for Edward to see, "Is Little Emmett. I've had him since I was just little, and, you know, all things considered, that's a long time."

* * *

"Embry," Bella whimpered, rolling down the window. "You scared me."

The massive black wolf in front of her didn't respond; he only stared intently at her face, panting heavily with his tongue lolling out. Bella took a deep breath, willing her heart to calm. When he'd jumped out in front of her truck like that, she'd thought for a second there was a bear in her path.

"So," she said to the unresponsive wolf. "Feeling better, I see." The wolf grinned, for lack of better word, tilting his head to the side as if in question. "I saw Emily at the store. She told me you were having a hard time phasing."

The wolf nodded its massive head a few times.

Bella found herself giggling, and he bent down to pick up his pants between his teeth, holding them out to her.

"Er..." Bella blinked a few times, but then noticed something sticking out of one of the pockets. She pulled it out, holding in her hands a crumpled white envelope. "Dr. Fang" was written in messy handwriting across the front.

Bella looked up and Embry stared imploringly at her.

"I'll give it to him," she said, thinking how embarrassing it was going to be to hand Carlisle something addressed to "Dr. Fang."

A black tail disappeared into the woods, and Bella called out, "Oh Embry! Wait. Any news from..."

But he was too far gone; or maybe he had no answer he thought was worth turning around to give.

* * *

"A teddy bear?" Edward asked flatly.

Little Emmett's button eyes were dull. One ear looked like it had been chewed off. The satin covering his nose was frayed and faded. His arms were limp, just like his legs. He was a tiny, mottled thing.

Emmett loved him more than almost anything else in the world, except for perhaps his family.

He knew he was getting defensive. "He isn't just a teddy bear!"

Edward seemed shocked by his brother's vehemence. Emmett knew that at the moment, he embodied that which caused human skin to prickle, the strange shadow that seemed to fall overhead even though you stood directly beneath the sun- Emmett was, for the time being, an angry, heaving vampire, and by way of nature, Edward, the tiny, trembling prey. He took a step back, unconsciously perhaps, but Emmett felt his face soften and his hands unclench. He himself stepped away from his brother, as if reassuring him with the distance between them.

"I'm sorry."

"No, no, it's okay. Uhh, he's..." Edward's face seemed to twist out of its frightened mold. "He's wonderful, Emmett."

Emmett paused, pulling the teddy bear close to him. He rubbed the fading satin on the bear's nose.

"You're missing the point," he grumbled. "Little Emmett is like a stress ball– except I would never squeeze him, or hurt him.. He helps me feel relaxed."

Edward yawned. "I'm not big into teddy bears, Emmett."

"Play piano, then."

Edward shrugged. "Haven't felt like it."

Silence stretched between them, and Emmett tried, "I've heard that exercise can be very calming."

"Yoga, you mean?" Edward asked disdainfully.

Emmett rolled his eyes, and said, "I've heard running is popular for stress relief among humans," and was about to add more, but then heard what he'd been listening for earlier... The sound of a vehicle coming up the driveway. And not just any vehicle... And old one, with a painfully wheezing engine and loose pieces that clacked together as it moved.

"Bella's here," Emmett said, and Edward flashed past him. Emmett followed him– stopping at his room to hide his teddy away safely– and met Bella just as she was coming in the front door. She leaped into Edward's arms and tossed something small and white over his shoulders to Emmett. It began fluttering to the ground but he snatched it out of the air. It was a letter, for Carlisle he assumed, since there was only one doctor in the house.

Emmett turned away from Edward and Bella's embrace, wandering into the kitchen and setting down the letter in the center of the table– he positioned it in exactly the center, where he was certain Carlisle would find it.

The two humans followed a moment later, Bella gushing with concern, "You look hungry. When was the last time you ate?"

"Recently," Edward hedged, and his stomach growled as he did. Emmett could sense that Bella wasn't going to accept that sort of an answer, but she was cut off by the door flying open. The girls tromped in with Carlisle following behind. Their eyes were just as black as when they'd left half an hour ago.

Alice muttered glumly, "We turned around when the future disappeared."

Emmett handed the envelope over to Carlisle silently, and he opened it with only a slight chuckle at the words on the front. His eyes scanned the first few lines quickly, and he sighed.

"The pack wants us to meet them."

"Why should we?" Rosalie asked bitterly, and Emmett silently agreed.

Carlisle frowned, still reading. "They had a sick member... They think it was the same thing Edward had. But he's gotten better."

"Embry," Bella quipped. "He couldn't phase anymore. But now he's fine."

Carlisle ventured, "We might learn something more about what's happening to Edward..." Next to Emmett, Edward tilted his head to the side as if wondering what Carlisle was talking about. "And it would seem that they'll come looking if we don't go. Otherwise our future wouldn't have disappeared."

They stood in silence. "When do we leave?" Emmett asked, understanding that Carlisle was determined to go, given the medical issue at hand. Though he could hardly see how it was an issue anymore. After all, Edward was better, wasn't he? He had health... and humanity.

"We'll leave now. They've specified where to meet them... All of us," Carlisle added firmly. He raised his voice a bit. "Including Jasper."

The blond had to have heard him, still hiding away on the other end of the house.

The vampires began to head out the door, and Edward said, "Hey, wait! Aren't I included in "all of us"?"

They paused, undecided, and probably about to argue– for safety's sake. But Edward was still part of the family, so Emmett scooped him up and tossed him onto his back as he headed out the door.

Bella protested, but Edward murmured, "Go home, Bella, be safe."

The door shut behind her, and the vampires raced into the forest.

* * *

"Aren't you going?"

Bella snapped her head up. Jasper stood before her, looking down at her where she sat sulking on the floor.

"They said to stay behind," she told him angrily.

Jasper chuckled. "Well, that hardly seems fair. Come."

He held out his arms to her, and Bella stood excitedly. "You'll take me?"

"Of course," Jasper answered, looking bemused by her question. "You're a part of the family too, Bella."

Bella leaped into Jasper's open arms, but then stuttered, blushing, "Oh, er, sorry, it won't... bother you? I mean... I'd heard you hadn't hunted..."

When she glanced into his eyes she saw that it wasn't true.

"I've been the smart one around here," Jasper told her with a grin. "Hunting practically in the backyard, as it were. The others like to travel some distance, so they aren't bothering the locals with drained deer corpses... but it's too difficult for me. Besides, Bella, your scent is nothing to me. Not anymore."

Jasper smiled tightly, lifting her into his arms, and taking off into the night, the movement knocking her breath away before she could respond.


	14. Chapter 13

**Tangle of Thorns  
**ejaculatedteabag.  
_Chapter 13  
- - - - - - - - -_

Fact: Vampires don't have muscles the way humans do.

This is what Edward Masen learned when he changed, when he felt his skin harden and pulse, and when he tried to move he moved not his mucles or his bones, but what had once been his softer, warmer outer layer. His skin was no longer just the protection for his bones- it was the hard framing. It gave his body shape. When he ran he could feel his muscles moving, his useless, human muscles as they sat unchanged beneath his skin; but they weren't exercising; there was no force. His muscles were simply extra weight pulled along for the ride. And over a hundred years Edward had come to know full reliance on his frozen, almost granite skin.

Fact: When humans don't use their muscles for a long time, something happens that's called 'atrophy'.

This is what Edward Cullen learned on his various trips to medical school. Atrophy was a partial or complete wasting away of muscles. It was caused by disuse, or sometimes by hereditary disorders. The majority of muscle atrophy in the general population was caused by disuse... as in elderly citizens, people with sedentary jobs or injured body parts (legs in casts and eyes in constant darkness and brains in coma patients). What happens, essentially, is that the muscles shrink. And when you start to exercise them again, if recovery is possible in that particular case, there's a lot of pain and discomfort in whichever region of your body.

Fact: Pain, and everything it really, truly implies, exists in this world in more ways than a human can really learn.

This is what Edward Cullen learned after letting his muscles waste away for a hundred years; it was a different pain from the two changes he had gone through; the first burned, but it came part and parcel with a bizarre sense of exhilaration. Despite the immense agony, he knew that he had never seen clearer, that he had never heard as much and that his sense of smell had never brought to his mind as many tingling sensations. He had known that at the moment, everything- every bone in his body and every organ lying beneath and every blood vein passing by them, was hurting like it had never hurt before. But he also knew that for those strange, excruciating three days, he had never felt more alive.

For the second change he was disoriented and weak more than in pain. He was hot all the time, after a century of cold; his bones were like leaden weights. This was not truly pain so much as it was a sheer mental and physical exhaustion that seemed to defy the principles of nature. And everything after that was pain, too– running down the stairs to be in Bella's arms, his muscles screamed with every movement. Walking, talking, moving became a chore, one that he smiled through because he knew that this was a human's pain, that it was nothing his family needed to concern themselves with, and because, once upon a time it had been everything he wanted.

It was a dim knowledge somewhere in Edward's mind that his body was bothering him because it was alive. It wasn't being reborn- God knew that Edward understood how that felt- it was dying. It was dying bit by bit as he aged a second, a minute, hours, days at a time, simply because it was life's natural course.

It was living the way humans were meant to live, and it hurt like hell.

* * *

"Jasper," Bella gasped, the wind sending her hair flying into her mouth. "Tell me what you meant– about my scent."

Jasper slowed down only a little bit, apparently sensing the difficulty she had speaking. Their speed was now just enough for her to clearly hear his reply and to brush her hair back without losing her grip. Not that Jasper would ever have dropped her, she assured herself.

"I think Edward already has explained it to you," Jasper told her, his eyes focused on the forest floor and his voice dangerously indifferent.

"Did he?" Bella asked, swallowing hard and thinking back.

Jasper continued, "After he met you, Bella, other human's seemed pale in comparison. For him, your scent was the most powerful thing he could ever imagine. Everything else was stuck in its shadow... And that's how I feel."

Bella rested her head on Jasper's shoulder, thinking for a moment. "Does Edward's scent bother you... very much?"

Jasper answered without hesitation. "Yes, Bella. I've never encountered anything like it. I'd never even noticed before that humans' scents could be so diverse; now I see it. Your scent is nothing like Newton's. Or like Dr. Gerandy's. But I had never identified that before, because... I only noticed my primal responses."

"Now your control is better, though," Bella said happily.

"No." She blinked, wondering what he meant. "My control is still just as awful. The difference lie in your scent."

"My scent is just the same," Bella murmured soothingly, seeing that Jasper still beat himself up despite so much accomplished.

"But now I see that it isn't as appealing as I thought... I worry about this meeting." Bella realized that this was a difficult confession for him to make, by the way he pursed his lips together and turned his face away from her, in fact cradling her a little farther from his chest as he moved, as if his shame made him want to push her away.

Bella paused. "Edward will be there."

"Yes," Jasper agreed, his voice thick.

"And you'll do just fine," Bella said, the forest– the entire world– suddenly rushing past her faster than she could comprehend.

* * *

"Emmett!" Edward squeaked angrily– there was no better word for it. "Put me down! Put me down!"

"We're not there yet," Emmett explained calmly.

"I'll walk! You're hurting me!"

Emmett stopped immediately, lowering Edward off his back.

"We're almost there," he mused. "It'll probably only be a few minute's walk."

He and Edward trudged through the forest for a few moments with the only noise that of twigs snapping beneath their feet– and to Emmett's ear, heartbeat, contracting lungs, the acidic gurgling of a too-empty stomach.

"Are you okay?" Emmett asked.

"Oh, er, yes. It's just that my leg is a little sore, and um, the position I was in just pinched my nerves, I suppose."

Edward looked away from Emmett, who said nothing more of the topic. After all, Edward would know. He had been to medical school three times. Emmett had never even taken a science major. So he had no reason to question what his brother said.

It was out of respect for Jasper, Edward assumed, that Emmett lead him all the way across the clearing and said, "Stay here, Edward," when they came out through the trees.

No one had said anything to him, but Edward had seen Jasper only twice– no, three times– since his change, and each instance had ended disastrously. He had seen the look in his brother's eyes, and Edward knew that once upon a time he had worn the same look. His scent was more difficult for Jasper than anyone was willing to admit, that much understood, and he didn't want to push his luck, so he nodded– rather glumly– and sat down on the grass, thankfully dry, for the sun was out and shining brightly.

Edward laid back, resting his head on the grass and shutting his eyes. He grimaced when another round of pain hit him, not the first in the last few days, and undoubtedly not the last. His stomach felt like an empty, gaping hole beneath his skin, and his energy was severely limited. _I should have let Emmett carry me_ _the whole way_, he thought bitterly, hating that his leg had bothered him such that he needed to be set down.

Or maybe he should just eat something. Edward's gag reflex acted up at the very idea of allowing human food down his throat. It was so painfully disgusting that he felt like screaming when Carlisle tried to make him eat it. But he couldn't get all of his energy from sleeping. Not and hope to remain alive.

On the other hand, Edward thought dully, his eyes drooping, weren't humans supposed to be able to go without food for three weeks?

* * *

When Jasper stepped out from under the trees, gently setting Bella down, he saw first that they were still waiting on the arrival of several wolves, the pack spread out around the clearing while his family chatted amiably nearby. Edward was dozing quietly, curled up in a little ball across from him. Jasper didn't breathe in, but said to Bella, "He's asleep," with the last of his air, and she laughed quietly, going instead to stand by Alice.

He saw that Rosalie threw him a harsh look, but Jasper didn't regret bringing Bella along. If the pack wanted to talk about something to do with Edward's illness, she should have been one of the first invited to come.

Jasper heard paws pounding into the forest floor from the west, and soon the tall black wolf in the pack– Embry? Or Quil? For the life of him Jasper couldn't remember which one it was– broke through the trees maybe twenty feet from where Edward lay. He began to trot casually across the field but froze, stiffening. In an instant Jasper sensed hostility, shock, revulsion, and a tension that sensed he was ready to pounce.

When a wolf enters a clearing full of vampires, this doesn't seem out of place. It was the shock that hinted Jasper off. As if he wasn't expecting to encounter what he did. There was only one scent in the group that could possibly have been new to the wolf.

Jasper leaped forward, growling furiously– just at the same time as the wolf did. At first, he supposed, his family must have thought he'd lost control, because they all moved after him, crying out in shock.

But Jasper had no intent of hurting Edward. Instead, he scooped his brother up in his arms, backing up quickly as the black wolf advanced on him. It wasn't long before another wolf leaped in between them, cornering the other.

Jasper's lungs were so still they may have been frozen. But he could still hear Edward's heartbeat, and he _knew_ what the pulsing blood smelled like. Struggling against his every impulse, he handed Edward over to Esme, darting away from the scene as fast as he could.

He watched from the other side of the clearing as chaos gave way to order. Edward had been jarred awake when Jasper grabbed him, and now stood rubbing his eyes next to Bella, who fretted and wrapped her arms around him with a terrified expression.

The black wolf had disappeared into the trees, and emerged again a moment later, looking shame-faced and afraid. It was Embry, as had been Jasper's first guess, and Jasper heard the apology from across the field as if he'd been standing next to them.

It was Sam who said it actually, explaining to Carlisle, "He's been... different since his illness. For the most part we find that he's better. But every now and then..." Sam shrugged. "This is part of why we wanted to talk to you."

Jasper's attention was drawn away when Rosalie approached him. Her face was impassive, her stance strangely formal.

After a moment she conceded, "You did well."

Jasper wrinkled up his brow. Her words hardly coincided with the unbridled fury which had become the most basic staple of her emotions recently.

"I meant in not eating him. Not in saving him. That we could have done without."

Jasper smiled, though he tried to hide it, and with a final nod of her head Rosalie turned and walked away.

"Thank you, Rose," he murmured, and though she didn't acknowledge it, he knew she heard it.

* * *

"So," Carlisle said, and the clearing was silent except for a bird's song.

"We're all here now," he continued, though Bella noted an obvious absence. She sighed, snuggling into Edward's side. He looked about ready to fall over, the bags under his eyes even deeper than the ones under his family's– though he'd been sleeping more than enough. Across the ring of tense bodies, Embry smiled tightly at her. She knew it was one of apology and smiled warmly back, understanding that something was happening to the boy that no one could really figure out. Just like with Edward.

Carlisle turned to glance at Embry, apparently thinking along the same wave as Bella, "Edward's scent does have some lingering traces of the illness he had. It might have been that which made Embry– tense."

Embry paused Edward thoughtfully, "It isn't a smell I recognize. I don't even notice it unless I'm in wolf phase." Then his face sagged in relief a bit. "You're probably right. I can't imagine any other reason..." Shamefully, he added, "I don't know what came over me."

"It's fine," Esme assured him. "Things worked out alright."

Her smile was blinding, and Bella knew it was because of her pride in Jasper– who cringed, apparently doubtful of his accomplishment.

Sam cleared his throat, venturing, "Something we wanted to ask you about was the... er– "Volturi." We understand that there is some expectation about Bella being... Changed. We wonder if recent events will affect that."

Bella felt her heart speed up. She hadn't even thought of this yet, and the expressions on the Cullen's faces told her that they hadn't either. Carlisle turned to study Bella and Edward where they stood, and the others followed his lead.

"It's hard to say," he finally mused. "Aro is a fickle man. He may be intrigued by Edward's transformation... Or furious."

"And they'll come looking soon," Esme murmured.

"Carlisle?" Alice asked in a tiny voice. He didn't turn to look at her, but she continued. "Is it possible they won't be able to find Edward?"

"What do you mean, Alice?" Bella muttered, angry that everyone was staring at them but ignoring them, too.

"Well, Demetri tracks by mind... er... mind waves? I don't understand it fully, but the way Edward explained it to me... Shouldn't his mind be different now?"

A confused silence settled awkwardly over the crowd.

"I'm lost," Seth declared.

Edward stared intently at Alice for a moment, though Bella had the notion that he wasn't even seeing her. "I think I understand what you're getting at. The... 'feel' of... a werewolf's mind, for instance, would be different from a vampire's. So it's possible to say that a vampire's and human's might be as well."

"Right," Alice cut in, clearly excited that someone understood. "So now that you're a different... well, species, as it were, your mind... ugh. Signature?– has changed."

"It's possible," Edward allowed. "...But not likely."

"So then there is no solution worked out for the issue with the Volturi," Sam nearly growled.

"No," Carlisle sighed. "But I don't think the people in this area are in any danger. This isn't something you need to worry about. We'll deal with the Volturi, if it comes to that."

Carlisle smiled– a doctor's smile, full of assurances– at the werewolf's, but Bella trembled with fear anyways. What would the Volturi do if they found out? She wasn't scared of being changed and made to join their guard. She could handle that. She could insist on her own hunting patterns in return for her cooperation.

But if they wanted to take Edward, too? Would they try and change him– and what would happen if they did? Maybe his body couldn't handle another change-, or would they leave him?

Or worst of all, Bella thought, would they kill him without a second glance, finding him useless, and take her, forcing her to walk without him for all eternity?

Bella shuddered, burying her face in the fabric of Edward's shirt, and wondering how much time what she'd originally thought was a 'miracle' would grant them.


	15. Chapter 14

****

Tangle of Thorns

_Chapter 14_

"I'll take you home, Bella," Jasper muttered quietly. "We'll return your truck later."

"Jasper," she began, "I really don't want–"

The blond sighed, hoisting her into his arms. "He's just going to fall back asleep when we get home anyways. Possibly before then. It's all he does."

"Has he been eating?" Bella asked as they flashed through the trees.

"Carlisle's been trying to feed him, but he's not exactly cooperative." Jasper paused and added, "He's unhappy."

Bella stared at him questioningly. "Unhappy? But this is what he's wanted for so long..."

"That's what I thought, too," Jasper told her, and Bella found that she couldn't reply.

* * *

"Emmett, do you think I've... done 'wrong' by Edward?" Rosalie asked.

"Huh?"

Emmett looked over at her serenely, sitting up and pulling her into his arms. The wet ground below them felt the same way a soft mattress would feel to a human– any place would. Home is where the heart is, as they say.

"No, Rose," Emmett finally said. "I think... you reacted the only way we could have expected you, too. It does seem– unfair that Edward was granted new life when others wanted it so badly."

He stumbled over his words, trying to use ones that were both true and pleasing to Rosalie– which was not always easy.

Rosalie said, "I should do something to prove that I'm not some sort of monster. I believe Carlisle's quite angry."

"Er, I guess you could," Emmett hazarded, unsure what she was getting at.

They looked across the trees towards the house, where they heard the sounds of their family within.

Rose stood suddenly, moving quickly into the house, and Emmett followed behind at a shocked, straggled speed.

"I'm sorry about how I've behaved," Rosalie was saying inside. "_I'll_ watch him while you hunt to make up for it; and go later alone."

Carlisle and Esme stood blinking at her. They'd been discussing this just before.

"Well..." Carlisle began, studying her face. Did he not trust Rosalie? Emmett wondered. There couldn't possibly be any reason to think her lying.

"No!" Jasper could be heard saying somewhere in the back of the house. "No, absolutely not."

Suddenly the blond tore into the room, face alarmed. "We can't leave her alone with him; she'll kill him!"

Emmett was brutally offended by a remark such as that about Rosalie. She wouldn't kill Edward... though she might want to. But this was just Emmett. Alice had come quietly into the room, and silently agreed with Jasper. And Esme understood the anger in Rosalie's heart, understood that sometimes it clouded her judgment, though she knew that in truth, her beautiful daughter _was_ a 'good person' (as it were).

(To her credit, Carlisle, at least, thought that Rosalie looked very appalled by Jasper's accusation.)

Which was why he said, "okay," and Jasper became very angry and a fistfight ended up breaking out between Emmett and Jasper.

But Carlisle's word was final, and after some brief discussion, it was agreed that Rosalie would stay behind with Edward– and that, no, Jasper wouldn't stay behind, too, he needed to feed more than anyone else.

To his own credit, Carlisle truly did believe in the purity of Rose's character.

And in all honesty, Rosalie was not 'lying' when she said she would not lay hand, foot, or mouth on her sleeping brother.

* * *

Christ, Rosalie didn't even want to _touch_ Edward, didn't want to _look_ at him. She sat downstairs and read a book (a touching story about a girl in a boy's body destined to be Queen which made her doubt Jasper's taste in novels).

And when Edward came downstairs later in a pair of running sneakers and sweater and shorts, thinking that maybe Emmett was right about getting some exercise, Rosalie did not look up from her novel except for a cursory glance to be sure he wasn't dying or something.

And when Edward opened the backdoor and left, Rosalie glanced up again to look at the weather. Raining, as usual.

And when Edward disappeared into the woods behind their house, Rosalie was thoroughly engrossed in her book.

* * *

Bella hated Jasper, who'd carried her home with an apologetic smile immediately after they met with the werewolves.

He'd said, "He's just going to sleep, Bella. It's all he ever does. You won't miss anything."

Of course, she thought, a bit deflated, maybe Jasper was right. From what she'd seen, Edward _did_ sleep a lot.

She pulled the new recipe she was trying out of the oven, thinking ruefully that if only Edward would _eat_, the sleeping might not be so worrisome.

This was when the front door burst open, and someone with footsteps much lighter than her father's entered the entryway. Bella wandered out of the kitchen, wondering who was there.

Edward stood grinning in front of her, and she rushed into his arms more than a little enthusiastically. He was sopping wet, but she hardly minded.

"How'd you escape?" she asked excitedly, kissing his cheek, and neck, and nose, and forehead...

"They set Rosalie as watchdog."

Bella stiffened a bit.

"Now, now, she wouldn't hurt me, Bella," Edward admonished her, apparently having more faith in his sister than most others, though it was his life at stake. "...But she didn't particularly care when I left either. I must say I'm quite grateful for the way things worked out."

He smiled crookedly at Bella and, grasping her hand, let her lead him into the kitchen. He sat down heavily.

"Tired?" Bella pressed worriedly.

"God, yes. That's the most exercise I've gotten since... er. How long has it been since I was still a member of the walking undead?"

Bella laughed, but then faltered. "Wai– Did you walk here?"

"Ran, actually. I thought it wou–"

"Edward!" Bella sputtered. "Christ you could've– you could've– You just recently got out of the hospital! You shouldn't be running in the rain! You haven't even eate..." Bella calmed herself, sitting across from him at the table. "Speaking of which, are you hungry?"

"Not at all," Edward said, a little too quickly. She noticed that his eyes flashed in terror a little.

"Because, you know," she continued, ignoring his answer, "I just got done making this."

She gestured to the pan between them.

"It's two in the afternoon," Edward replied nervously, dancing around the subject. "Why are you cooking now?"

"I thought I'd have time to test it. I've never made this before. But I had it elsewhere once, and it's very good."

"I'm sure Charlie will love it. Um..." Edward was casting about for some change of topic, Bella could tell, but she could also see that he'd gotten thinner.

"Won't you eat something?"

"I'm not hungry, honestly!"

Bella looked into her lap, and immediately thought deviously of a way she could make him eat something. She knew her acting was considered bad, but she'd have to make this work– his health might rely on it.

"You won't try my cooking," she said in a deadened voice, trying to make it pathetic and emotionless at the same time. From Edward's silence, she thought that maybe, just maybe, it had worked. He sat quietly across from her, and she wouldn't look up for fear of giving herself away. Also, she knew, Edward was used to her looking away from him when something upset her. She hoped it seemed real enough.

"It's not that I... don't... want to try your cooking, Bella.. I just..."

"Then why won't you?" Bella asked, doing her best not to whimper and overdo it.

"I– I... fine. I'll... try some of it. A little."

Bella looked slowly up at him, not letting her triumph overtake her. She pretended to study his face– thinly veiled horror– and allowed herself to smile slowly. She quickly served out a piece of the dish, considerably more than the "little" bit he'd asked for, placing it in front of him and sitting happily beside him.

Of course, with her next to him, watching like that, she knew he wouldn't dare eat anything other than all of it.

* * *

Oh, God. It was so disgusting. Edward had heard that Bella was a good cook. Perhaps she was. But a hundred years seemed to have deadened his taste buds to human food.

He did eat all of it, and when he was done he told her, "It was wonderful," though it was not. Far from it. What he wanted, Edward thought suddenly, was a raw steak.

He confused himself with that thought, but figured it was his body's way of finding a simple medium between the human food he needed– and the blood he craved.

He shivered at that last thought, and Bella murmured, "Are you cold?"

He was, actually, and admitted so a bit reluctantly.

"Maybe..." Bella paused, gauging his expression, and looking at the clock.

"Perhaps... we should get you out of these wet clothes."

Edward froze for a second, before glancing at the clock himself. Charlie wouldn't be home for hours, and... Bella did feel particularly warm and soft against him, her arms wrapped around his waist... and...

"I think that's a very good idea."

* * *

It was even better, with Edward as a human. It was wonderful with him no matter what species he was, of course, but Bella discovered very quickly that making love with someone who was warm and soft was just more _natural_ than anything else.

Plus, Edward had been so reserved before, so scared of hurting her.

Now he was addled with passion, just like she was. When Bella pressed her ear to Edward's chest, she heard his heart beating frantically– the way her own did. His breathing got harder as they moved together. His touch was fiery and quick, more desperate and released than before. He needed her, Bella thought, just like she needed him. And as they rose up above their own consciousness, in synchronicity, kissing and touching, empowering each other with a fierceness unlike anything either had felt before, he bit her.

Bella blinked, and Edward froze.

"Oww."

"I'm– so– sorry. I– what the hell?"

Edward sat up, pulling out of her a bit, but Bella moved with him, quickly, not wanting to lose the sensation of fitting together with him in such a way.

They sat a little awkwardly, each staring at the red ring where his teeth had penetrated her skin.

"I honestly don't know why I did that," Edward confessed, apparently humiliated– he was flushing bright red.

Bella giggled, throwing her arms around his neck. "I do. It's okay. I don't mind."

She nuzzled his chin with her head and sighed. "It's fine. Just don't bite me anywhere it will hurt me, okay?"

Edward, still stiff, didn't answer for some time. And then, sighing, he leaned into her again, breathing, "I'll remember that," and things were right in the world.

Except that seven minutes later he rushed from her bedroom and Bella heard him puking in the bathroom. She followed him, kneeling down behind him and rubbing his back. When he stopped, she leaned forward to see if it looked like he'd thrown up _everything_ she fed him. Because, were that the case, she would have to make him eat again.

As it was, Edward had retained almost everything Bella had fed him.

What he'd coughed up was a dark black, slimy liquid– Bella peered at it in horror, and realized belatedly that it was–

"Old blood? What is that doing in your stomach? That's bad, isn't it? When people start coughing up old blood. I don't understand how that could've gotten there without some sort of internal bleeding. Edward, I think we should call Carlisle."

She must have been babbling, because Edward looked at her like she had two heads, and neither of them had a brain.

"Bella," he began slowly. "I should think... that it would be extremely obviously why there is old blood in my stomach."

"I– oh. Yes." Bella blushed heavily. "Yes, it is," she agreed sheepishly, and the conversation ended there.

Of course Bella didn't question why it was there when he'd been human for more than enough time to get rid of the remains of a vampire's meal. And of course she didn't question why he hadn't already digested it as a vampire, why it would still be in his stomach at all.

Anyways, he was the one who'd gone to medical school, not her. What did she know?

* * *

Bella was sad to see Edward go, as she always was, but he was healthier than he was when he'd gotten there– having eaten– and his clothes were dry, and he was rested. Charlie would be home in a few minutes– and maybe, she thought, the Cullens would let him spend time with her more now, seeing that she'd been capable of getting him to eat, when they had not. She knew that Esme and Carlisle wanted what was best for him, and she knew that they would see the benefit of Edward being in Bella's care.

He kissed her soundly before heading out, refusing another offer that she might drive him.

"No, Bella, no need. I do need the exercise and it's warmer now. The rain's let up."

This was true. It was only sprinkling. But still, he could've gotten home dry. If only he'd let her take him.

* * *

Edward's sense of direction was almost as keen as a vampire's or a werewolf's– almost. Anyway, he recognized all the familiar trees. He'd gone between his place and Bella's place so many times that there was literally almost no chance of his getting lost.

He didn't get lost. He was just desperately tired. And though the rain was light when he left Bella's, it was still cold. It was dark and getting darker, and for just a moment, Edward thought, he would sit down and rest.

* * *

"Where are we going?"

Alice was worried. It made her tense and a bit hostile. Jasper recognized that her anger was not directed at him, and instinctively he thought that it may have been meant for Rosalie.

"Home."

The car sped across the road, pulling them closer to the white mansion, almost empty, on the outskirts of Forks.

"Check around back," Alice told him as they rushed up the driveway. "Spread out."

Jasper did as he was told unquestioningly, grateful for the day's many meals. If he was going to find Edward, he needed to be completely full– no, Jasper acknowledged a little sadly, he needed to be completely unbreathing.

So he held his breath, and he had nothing to help in his search but his instinct and his hearing, and a trail of careless, hazy contentedness that led him to a little spot in the woods where Edward was curled upon himself, freezing but not realizing it, heart sluggishly slow but still beating, skin smelling absolutely delicious but never entering Jasper's nose, thank God, as he carefully hoisted his brother up and, furious and thinking of all the ways to kill his twin sister, ran home with him.


	16. Chapter 15

**Tangle of Thorns  
**_Chapter 15  
_

Jasper's original plan was to bring Edward up to the boy's bedroom, start stripping him down while he waited for Alice, relinquish her to his care the instant she arrived– and then track down Rosalie.

But as he flew through the forest, a quiet voice came from below his chin. "Wha–? Jasper? P' me down. 'S okay, put me down please."

Jasper looked down and saw that much colour had returned to Edward's cheeks. He almost breathed a sigh of relief but stopped himself, holding his lungs still. He moved forward, knowing Alice was just behind him, and set Edward gently down after he entered their warm living room. Edward could stand find on his own, Jasper was relieved to see; he knew that he also needed attention soon–

but that would have to wait for a moment, because his mind became a haze of anger as Jasper laid eyes on the beautiful Rosalie seated across the room from him.

* * *

"What the hell is your problem, Rosalie?"

Jasper glowered angrily at Rosalie, his stance stiff, his voice harsh. She watched him dully from her spot on the immaculate white sofas, her legs crossed, cleaning her nails as she did.

"What's my problem?" she repeated, not bothering to make it sound like an actual inquiry. Edward shivered, feeling like his bones were made of ice. Rosalie and Jasper were like a distant scene, a movie he'd watched years ago and could now barely remember. His head swam and his breath froze the moment it left the warm cocoon of his lungs.

Jasper accused, "You were supposed to be making sure he didn't get hurt."

Seeming for all the world like an actress who'd rehearsed her part a thousand times, Rosalie's blank gaze turned to Edward, looking him over. Edward couldn't quite follow the conversation. All he wanted was to lie down somewhere warm and go to sleep.

"He's not hurt. Just a little wet." Did her voice bristle with anger there? Or was it malicious pleasure? Or was he imagining things? ...And what in hell were they talking about? As he gazed on, she turned back to Jasper, never rising from the sofa, barely moving an inch. _Oh_, Edward thought, his brain sluggishly catching up to his siblings. _They're talking about me._

"Jasper, it's okay. It wasn't Rosalie's fault," Edward tried to say, but no sound came out of his throat. His voice wouldn't work. He wasn't sure they would have understood him through the chattering of his teeth anyways.

"Damnit Rosalie, you're so insensitive. Do you not care?" Jasper demanded. "Does it just not matter to you?"

"Of course I care. He's my brother, too."

Rosalie's words and her tone didn't match up, Edward thought... Then again, her words and her mouth didn't match up. Things looked a bit hazy and out of sync.

"Look, I'm sorry," she added defensively. "He's an adult. I assumed he could handle himself."

"Whether or not Edward is old enough to-" Jasper seemed at a loss for words. He couldn't finish his sentence, but finally he said, in a voice that seemed almost level, "That's not the issue, Rosalie. The issue here is that you have no sense of responsibility for someone in your care. You don't even understand what it _means_ to need to look after someone who's weaker than you. If someone actually needed you, you would just be a big disappointment to them."

The pause in the air was heavy, and Edward felt himself stiffen at his brother's words, sensing something more, something worse, to follow.

"It's a good thing you can't ever be a mom," Jasper spat, "Because obviously, you'd be horrible at it."

"Jasper, no!" It wasn't Edward who said it, or Rosalie. It came from behind him. Edward's body felt numb- he couldn't turn to look, but he didn't have to. He recognized Alice's high voice.

Edward still stood towards the two blondes, and saw as they both transformed– Rosalie's haughty, cool expression becoming an emotionless slate, and as Jasper's face fell into darkness. His entire demeanor seemed to crumble beneath the weight of guilt and shame. Edward knew that the room had changed in a way he could not sense, that only Jasper felt the full burden of what was happening... He felt not only his own guilt, but Alice''s shock, Edward's fear and confusion, and whatever the hell it was that Rose was going through.

Jasper could have let Rosalie know he was sorry, in more ways than the words that came from his mouth, but he didn't. Instead he turned, his eyes haunted, and fled past Alice and into the night.

* * *

Alice had run off after Jasper, unsurprisingly, probably, Rose thought, to urge him back. She sat numbly for a moment, angry, some, but mostly sad. She wrapped her arms around her knees, wondering if Jasper was right. Wouldn't she make a good mother? She would love her children so much; it wouldn't be like–

Edward walked numbly across the room, and Rosalie thought, guiltily for a moment, that it looked like he couldn't walk at all.

This was true, she realized, when he collapsed halfway across the floor. Part of her told her to get up and help him, but another part, the angry, bitter woman who wanted children of her own to love and knew that Edward would get that before her, told her not to.

How ironic, another person might have thought, that the mother in her told her to let a person in need struggle across the floor on his own.

But this didn't occur to Rosalie; instead she only watched while Edward crawled to the fireplace and curled up on the stones next to it, sighing in relief, though he still shivered noticeably. She watched him like that for ages– was it only twenty minutes? she thought with despair as she glanced at the clock. Finally Edward sat up slowly, turning towards her–

No, she realized, not turning towards her. Just turning his back towards the fire, to help the rest of his body regain some heat. His eyes found her, and she noticed for the first time how startlingly green his eyes were. What colour had her eyes been? she wondered. She knew Carlisle knew, Edward and Esme probably did, too, but she'd never cared to ask.

What colour, she thought glumly, would my children's eyes have been? Rosalie turned her face away, resting her cheek on her knees and studying the pattern of rain coming down the window. One raindrop curved in and out like a pregnant woman's swollen belly. Another two started as one large one and separated to run parallel from each other like the shape of a bottle.

And yet others at the bottom of the window flung diagonally across the pane, where a tiny flower grew just outside, together creating the shape of a solitary woman.

"He's wrong, you know."

Rosalie's head snapped quickly around to look at Edward, who was staring intently at her. She almost growled at him, but for some reason her throat was stuck.

"I think you'd make a wonderful mother."

"Do you," Rosalie uttered coolly, finding his tone mocking.

He tilted his face sideways, studying her.

"I mean that," he told her. "I think... A mother's greatest strength is her love for her children, and her passion to do what's right by the ones she loves."

Rosalie sat silent and still, like a statue, and wishing, briefly, that she was one. Statues, after all, didn't have ears.

Or eyes.

She watched Edward struggle to his feet and then make his way– achingly slowly– over to the staircase. He turned, leaning heavily on the banister.

"You would love your children. And your relationship with Emmett shows that you are passionate about the people you care for."

Edward paused, and then continued, "I... know that... Sometimes it's easy to ignore the plights of people who are not close to your heart. Sometimes," Edward licked his lips, "It's even hard to notice them. And I know that... this doesn't make someone a bad person... And. I know..." Edward looked away, breathing out quietly in something that sounded like exasperation. His eyes found hers once more, and whatever he saw there must have spurred him on, because he added, confidently this time, "I know that mothers aren't put on earth to look out for everyone around them. Their job is to love and raise their own children, not everyone else's.

"Rosalie," Edward said, quietly, gently... compassionately? "Jasper just doesn't... It's hard for him, because, I guess... I _am_ close to his heart. But I understand that you can't be blamed for not noticing when I was putting myself in danger."

How did he know? Rosalie wondered then, watching as Edward climbed the stairs with difficulty. How did he know that she hadn't even _realized_, when Edward walked out the door, that there was something to worry about? How did he know that it hadn't occurred to her that the rain and the cold would affect him? God, she meant it when she promised Carlisle she wouldn't hurt Edward. She had intended to prove herself, to look after him–

and that, she thought sadly, is what made Jasper right, and Edward wrong. Edward didn't realize that, though it pained her to confess it, he was close to _her_ heart, too. He was _her _brother just as much as Alice's or Emmett's or Jasper's. Just as much as he was Esme's son or Bella's fiancé, he was Rosalie's brother. She _had_ meant to take care of him.

And she had failed.

_Well, Rosalie_, she said to herself, _it's a good thing you can't ever be a mom. Because, obviously, you'd suck at it._

* * *

It was Alice who'd told Emmett what Jasper said. Jasper knew she hadn't meant to cause trouble; she hadn't even expected Emmett to be so angry, not when she explained that Jasper was doing his best to make things right again, that he knew perfectly well that he'd been in the wrong... Jasper knew that Alice wouldn't have said anything if she'd thought it would put him in danger. She loved him too much for that, and anyway, she was just too good.

None of that mattered, of course, as Emmett towered over him glaring angrily at him– how much taller than Jasper was Emmett? A foot? 8 inches? _No,_ Jasper reminded himself. _Only 3 inches._

It seemed like a lot more at the moment.

"Jasper," Emmett grated. "I should kill you."

Jasper surprised himself by muttering glumly, "I know."

He didn't make any attempt to calm Emmett down– that was sneaky, and vile, and anyway he deserved whatever punishment was headed his way

What bothered him more than the obvious anger was the less obvious disappointment that he sensed. The entire family expected better from him. This couldn't be put down to instinct or bloodlust. Plain and simple, Jasper had just been cruel.

"Jasper," Emmett said in a low voice– too low for anyone to hear but the two of them. Nervously, Jasper stood his ground. Emmett straightened and began walking away, leaving Jasper blinking confusedly. He whispered over his shoulder, "Go apologize," and Jasper acknowledged sadly that it was the only solution. He had to go talk to Rosalie.

* * *

Edward rolled over and groaned tiredly. He opened his eyes; Jasper sat stiffly in his line of vision, staring tensely at him from the sofa.

Jasper said, "I see you're feeling better," but Edward had no clue what he was talking about.

His brother clarified, "At least you were well enough to make it here, to your room."

Edward moaned quietly, mulling that over. He was in his room, that was true. But he was entirely unsure as to whether or not he got here himself. He seemed to vaguely recall deciding to have a nap in the hallway, near a heater. It had seemed warm there, despite his wet clothes.

And he recalled as well a statuesque figure lifting him up quietly and bringing him to his room. He'd been helped to undress and into bed, where the warmth and the sound of rain lulled him to sleep. His immediate impression was of the height and beauty of a pale, blonde angel. The chances of an angel having helped him to his room were slim, Edward decided groggily. So maybe he had walked here.

A second blonde appeared suddenly in his thoughts.

"Have you talked to Rosalie?" he rasped.

Jasper was silent. He gazed intently at Edward and something in his expression changed. "No. I'll go do that now."

Jasper stood and paused by the bed. He looked about to reach out to Edward but instead breathed in deeply– through his mouth, Edward noticed– and left.

* * *

Rosalie was waiting for Jasper in his library. She'd been expecting him. Jasper had thought about all the different ways to apologize, but he knew that with Rosalie the best approach was often a direct one. In these situations.

"Rosalie," he said simply, "I'm sorr–"

"No." Rosalie put her hand out to motion him into silence. "You don't need to be. I was at fault."

Jasper protested, "But what I said–"

"It doesn't matter." Her tawny eyes were at peace, unmoving, calm... or would that particular expression be called lifeless?

"I should have paid more attention when he left. I didn't think."

"Yes, okay," Jasper agreed, adamant to get across his message. "But I still shouldn't have said what I did. I mean... it's not true. And..." Only Rosalie could make Jasper feel this awkward. He didn't remember ever fumbling with his words like this before. He supposed she had a similar effect on many people. It was hard to tell if you were going to make her angry or make her laugh.

Rosalie smiled gently, and crossed the room. She wrapped her arms around him and Jasper stiffened, but did his best to return the hug.

"Jasper," she said, "Do you remember what I told you earlier?"

"Umm."

"About being my real brother in all the ways that count?"

"Yes." Jasper's throat felt more dry than was normal for a vampire. He breathed in and noticed with some thrill and thirst that Edward's scent lingered, for some reason, in Rosalie's hair.

"I meant that. I know that... I don't always make it seem like... I want to be a part of this family..."

Jasper's throat felt thick. He opened his mouth but for some reason, his mind wouldn't connect.

"Jasper," Rosalie continued. "You shouldn't be so hard on yourself. I... could have done more. I should have been more careful when I was watching him... And I should have been doing more as a sister... for years now."

"That's not true," Jasper told her a bit weakly. "You've been just as good a sister as I could have wanted."

Rosalie smiled tightly, not believing him, and left the room.

It was true, though. In her way, Rosalie was the sister Jasper would have wanted. If he'd ever wanted a sister. He remembered his avid devotion to Alice through the years, and his way of enduring the Cullen coven in those first few years, for her– thinking that he would handle them, for Alice. He remembered gradually coming to respect them, and even to love them finally.

But of course, if it had been what Alice wanted, he would have left the Cullens long ago without a second thought.

Jasper thought of the years he'd spent thinking bitterly of Rosalie, and realized that she wasn't the only one who could have been doing more for their family.


	17. Chapter 16

**Tangle of Thorns**  
_Chapter 16_

Lately all Edward did was sleep. He found himself remembering exactly why he'd missed sleep for so many decades. He loved the peace that surrounded him as he was waking up in the mornings (or afternoons), contented and warm. Mostly he loved the sense of almost complete silence- the haze that covered his mind and blocked out the entire world.

Usually Edward dreamed of Bella; these dreams tended not to have any story or form, but were simply a slideshow of the many moments he remembered with her. Edward was always just a little bit sad when he awoke. He saw less of Bella during his waking hours than he did during his dreams. He couldn't help but find himself feeling somewhat lonely when he came out of such a content sleep and found himself in a bedroom at the top of a house where no one except he understood what it felt like to dream.

* * *

Jacob missed his home and he missed his family, his pack, and of course, Isabella. He walked the streets of Seattle feeling lost and unsure, completely out of touch with his sense of self. He never phased, for though he missed them, he couldn't bear to speak to the pack. Everyday he felt a little less like a wolf. His sense hearing felt less acute; he could barely pick up the scent of...

leech.

Jake cringed and turned to look, but found nothing. He tensed up, casting his gaze wildly around him. Now his entire person told him that a vampire was somewhere in the crowd of people around him, but Jacob couldn't tell where.

Jake sidestepped someone clumsily not paying attention to where they were going, terrified for a moment that they were headed at him on purpose, that they were the one he was looking for. As Jake scanned the faces, looking for the one he knew would be pale and beautiful beyond belief, he found himself constantly coming back to a small magazine stand. Jake couldn't explain why exactly he had to squint to see the small girl standing there. He couldn't make out facial features, only her vague feminine form. It was as if something was stopping his eyes from focusing on her. Jake stood glaring, tilting his head and looking at her from every angle until he finally narrowed in on her burgundy eyes.

Jake fought back a growl and stepped forward, still squinting just to _see_ her, considering his plan of action.

He blinked, and she was gone.

* * *

_"Unhappy? But this is what he's wanted for so long..."_

_"That__'_s what I thought, too.___"_

Bella scrubbed the dishes in the sink furiously, remembering Jasper's words the other day. Was he right? Was Edward really miserable? Bella knew that Edward was having a difficult time adjusting, but she had assumed that it was just _that_- adjusting. Jasper said he sensed unhappiness in his brother, and though Bella wanted to disagree, though she felt she knew Edward... who was she to disagree with Jasper on matters of emotion?

Bella realized unhappily that she didn't know the first of what Edward was going through. True, he'd said before that he wanted to be human... Was it less than what he'd expected? Bella sighed, burying her face in her hands. What was she supposed to do?

Then she straightened, her face determined. It was obvious what she was supposed to do, she thought then. Just go to Edward. Be there. Comfort him. Find out what was going on. Bella strode purposefully from the kitchen- and the front door burst open with a crash.

* * *

Edward woke up groggily. He reveled in the silence for a moment, and then noticed the gentle flipping of paper in the background. Rolling over, Edward focused on his sofa, where Jasper sat reading a book that looked old and torn.

"Good morning," he greeted, looking up now with a smile that suggested he was laughing at his own joke (one Edward didn't get), glancing out the window.

The light was streaming in brightly, and as he followed Jasper's gaze Edward saw that it was the afternoon, rather than morning. Yawning, Edward sat up slowly, trying to think of something to say. Jasper had gone back to his book, and seemed to be ignoring him. It didn't seem that Jasper was there for any particular reason, but given the difficulties Edward knew his brother was having dealing with his scent, he thought that Jasper must have had some important motive for being there.

Or maybe, he didn't talk _because_ of Edward's scent. Edward knew that he dealt best with Bella's scent, when he first met her, by not speaking. Conversation, of course, requires breathing.

Perhaps, Edward thought, smiling lightly, it wasn't words, but Jasper's silent presence which was the message.

* * *

"Angela," Bella said, holding the shaking girl in her arms, "_Calm down._"

Angela had came in through Bella's front door a mess, leaping across the threshold as if Bella was her own saviour. Through tears she explained that she and Ben were over because- Well, Bella still couldn't make that part out. Her friend breathed deeply and cast Bella a very hurt look.

"He said that I was..." Angela pulled in another great breath. "Not right for him, because we have different 'life goals.'"

"Um..."

"And because, apparently, though my heart is in the 'right place,' I'm sadly not adding anything to his life right now. Basically, he's telling me that he would rather read comic books and hang out with friends with the 'same interests' as him. I'm less interesting than a comic book!"

Bella watched with her mouth gaping open as Angela exploded on this last sentence.

"Um... Well, Angela... He's just a guy." Bella thought of how she'd reacted when Edward left. "I mean- that's not what I mean. I know he's important to you. But, if... you do... have so many differences, like he says, maybe it's... for the best. I mean, a girl like you can... easily find someone new. Who would turn you down?"

"...Ben."

Bella sighed. She was right earlier; she knew nothing about emotion.

"Right. Sorry. Um..."

Angela laughed. "Thanks for trying to help, Bella... Not to be annoying, but... can you make me dinner?"

Bella blinked a few times and then laughed. "Of course... What would you like?"

* * *

Quil and Embry had more or less adopted Seth since he joined the pack. He was in now way a replacement for Jake, who they missed desperately, but the younger boy was fun to drag around with them.

Together, the three of them threw on their clothes in the woods behind Bella's house (shirts included, out of respect for the lady) and headed around to the front door. It was Seth who'd wanted to come and Quil and Embry both remembered her fondly as being a sweet girl, and obviously important to Jake, so they agreed.

Embry followed behind Quil and Seth, flexing the muscles in his fingers. It felt so well to be good again. He hoped to use this visit to apologize a bit more formally to Bella about what happened in the field. He couldn't explain the horror he felt when he picked up Edward's scent. It wasn't a vampire's scent- but it wasn't a human's, either. He wondered why no one else found Edward's scent even slightly strange, when he _knew_ that he hadn't been imagining what he smelled.

Quil and Seth knocked on the door ahead of him and stepped in, and Embry smelled cooking food.

"Uh oh," he heard Bella saying, "looks like we'll have to make more."

A second female voice chimed in with an agreement, and Bella introduced Seth and Quil to Angela.

Embry turned a corner into Bella's kitchen, and felt the world slip away beneath his feet. Before him was a Goddess.


	18. Chapter 17

**Tangle of Thorns**  
_Chapter 17_

Embry felt the world slip away from beneath his feet, and heard a quiet noise fill his head: the sound of the grass growing during springtime, the sound of water pooling below, deep in the earth, of a new universe being born and the wind lying still against the mountain. It was the sound of his heart beating perfectly in time with another, and of gravity slipping beyond him into space.

"Embry, this is Angela," he heard Bella saying conversationally. Embry smiled at Angela, nodding in hello, and forced himself to turn to Bella.

"Hey, Bella. How's it?"

"Good." She paused and studied his face. He was used to getting similar looks from Emily recently. "You're okay?"

"Never felt better." Embry paused. "August 28th might just be the best day of my life."

The girls laughed, sounding bemused, and Quil shot him a sharp look. Seth, of course, was eyeing the food Bella was preparing.

"Feel free to join us. The food should be ready in a bit."

All three of the young wolves grinned at Bella widely, and she shook her head, sighing.

"Excuse me just a moment," Angela murmured in a quiet voice, and Embry was struck by the beauty in the way she spoke. She drifted from the room, headed to the bathroom. Embry paused, wondering about the best approach.

"Bella–" he began, hesitantly.

"She just broke up with her boyfriend today," Bella uttered quietly. "Give her time."

Embry blinked. Had he been that obvious?

"To anyone who knows what they're looking for," Quil answered the unspoken question.

Embry's face split into a broad smile, and only Seth looked confused.

They pulled up four chairs, and Seth immediately began pressuring Bella.

"How's Edward? Is he doing better? I–"

"Oh, um... He." Bella stared into space a moment. "He's better. Mostly."

Embry cleared his throat. "Bella, I'm really sorry about what happened in the clearing the other day. I have no clue what came over me."

"Oh, Embry, it's fine, Edward didn't mind at all. Carlisle's trying to figure out what kind of illness it might have been. He thinks that might be the key to what was bothering you."

Angela waltzed back in then, and Embry flashed her a grin before jumping back into his conversation with Seth. He pulled his eyes away from the beautiful girl with a surprising degree of ease. He knew, somehow, that he would have all the rest of his life to look at her.

* * *

"I can't believe they decided to leave you home alone," Bella murmured later the next evening, excitement colouring her voice.

Edward shrugged in response, staring distantly out the window from where he sat on the piano bench. "They realized that I'm likely to be quite safe alone as long as I remain here. And they decided that if they all left on a regular schedule to go hunting, I would actually be more safe. Trying to take me with them was obviously a disaster... They're to smart for that, really. I think Carlisle only agreed because he was so desperately concerned. They don't want any of them getting too hungry around me." Edward frowned lightly. "Particularly Jasper."

"Is it bad?"

"No. Not at all. That's why it bothers me." The creases on Edward's forehead smoothed out and he smiled genially at Bella. "They need to put more trust in him," he told her quietly. "I do."

Bella gulped and turned away, wondering if Edward's trust was misplaced. She hoped not; she wanted desperately to know that he was safe within his own home, in the company of his family, and she wanted Jasper to have the strength of will that she knew he'd always wanted. But she worried that what she wanted wasn't the reality, and that Edward was blind to the danger he might be in.

She peered through the branches of trees in the black night, noting their gentle sway in a calm breeze. Behind her, she heard the first tenuous chords of _Clair de Lune_ and sighed peacefully. Edward played quietly, and when she glanced at him she saw that his face was clear of the stress she'd seen over the past few days.

Bella glanced up at the waning moon. "The moon is beautiful tonight," she mentioned casually.

"Hmmm." Edward made a musing sound behind her. "Isn't it interesting," he began, "How two people can look at the exact same thing and take away two very different impressions."

"Um." Bella wasn't entirely sure what Edward was implying, and she turned to look at him, just as he shifted his hands out of the rhythm for _Clair de Lune_ and began playing something else. The next notes sounded discordant compared to Debussy's gentle melodies. Bella recognized Beethoven's _Moonlight Sonata_. She turned back to the trees shuddering. This time as she looked, she suddenly realized that the moonlight made the dark limbs seem like claws, tumbling around them to create shadows that danced with a life of their own.

"Edward," Bella ventured slowly. She sat down next to him on the piano bench. "Have you noticed... That it seems the same way with everything now?"

"I'm afraid I don't follow you, Bella," Edward murmured, his voice sounding a bit stiff. His fingers inexpertly fumbled with the piano keys momentarily, before he stopped playing altogether and turned to her with an open face that seemed surprisingly immobile. He rubbed her arms gently and she sighed in exasperation and pleasure at once.

"I just mean– you're so confident about Jasper." She noticed that his eyes seemed to flash with relief, and then to darken. What had he thought she was going to mention? Bella stored Edward's reaction away for later consideration before pressing further. "And I thought, maybe, you ought to consider... the impression everyone else gets from..."

"Bella," Edward said, not in clipped tones, but firm enough that she stopped immediately. "I have been with Jasper quite a bit for the past few days, and I assure you he's doing much better. Obviously I wouldn't want him around in a situation where I was bleeding, but I think I can spend some time with my brother without needing to worry."

Bella opened her mouth to add something, but Edward continued, more sharply, "And I don't need for anyone else to worry, either. Not you or the rest of my family. They just don't understand... and I can't explain it to them." Edward let out a frustrated moan, pulling his hands from Bella's arm and folding them across his chest.

They sat in awkward silence for a moment, before she mumbled, looking down at her hands, "I just don't want to see you _hurt_, Edward. I– I don't know how I would..."

"I know, Bella, I know," he assured her, his voice crumbling to become soothing. She felt his lips press against her forehead. "And I'm grateful. But– Trust me, please. I think you're the only one who can anymore."

She glanced up into Edward's eyes and thought that their bright green shade was as luminous as the moon. And then she wondered if that wasn't a horrible thing to be thinking.

* * *

Bella lie awake tossing in bed the next night. She thought of Edward's reaction, and the way he had acted today when they were together. He seemed happy... but turned suddenly sullen when it came time to eat, or when Bella suggested that he should get some rest. He seemed sick and weak at times throughout the day, and when she mentioned it he protested angrily to being babied.

But she wasn't trying to baby him. Just to remind him of the limits of his human body. Bella knew that he forgot sometimes...

She frowned, slamming her pillow down over her face. She marveled in the feel of the cool fabric, reminded of how it felt once to have Edward cup his palm on her cheek.

But decided that she liked the warmth better anyways.

Bella rested her head on the pillow now, her heart aching. She loved Edward, and she loved that he was human, and the possibilities that lie before them now. She gloried in the feeling of his touch now that they had the opportunity of intimacy laid so openly before them, and thrilled at every exploration they made into that new world.

But... Bella knew that something was wrong. She couldn't explain why Edward acted the way he did. He seemed discontent, and she was briefly reminded of the bitterness in Rosalie's face when she'd told Bella about being changed into a vampire.

Bella started suddenly, remembering Edward's words from the night before.

_Isn't it interesting... two people can look at the exact same thing and take away two very different impressions..._

Was that it? Bella thought, blood rushing to her face. Did Edward suddenly find himself seeing things the opposite of Rosalie? Suddenly was human life the cage he'd always found immortal existence to be? Bella swallowed thickly, breathing with a heavy difficulty. Did Edward really hate the new life he had?

Bella buried her face in her hair, realizing how everything fit together. Of course Edward hated it. He was helpless, and ruled by the physical world... he thought slower and couldn't move as gracefully as he once could. She recalled the way his fingers had slipped on the piano keys and her heart ached.

Bella thought of Edward's complaints about being unable to connect with his family anymore, thinking of the intellectual barrier she had always felt with him before, and knowing that he'd always felt it with her too; but now it was his entire family that Edward was separated from, the people he'd grown with as a person and loved for a century... and he had only Bella to turn to. And Bella couldn't relate to him either. Because she didn't have the slightest clue what Edward was going through. And she never could.

Bella sat up, wrapping her arms around her knees and furrowing her brows, briefly, in indecision. Her face cleared immediately. She knew what she had to do. Tomorrow was September 1st, and the rest of the Cullens would be back. She had to talk to them. Without Edward present.

Edward had let her be there last time this conversation took place in the Cullen household... but Bella cringed when she thought how he might react this time. This was something Bella needed to do without Edward. And for Edward.

Bella collapsed against the pillow once more, drifting to sleep with her mind spinning over the possibilities– if only everything went right tomorrow.

* * *

"I vote yes."

Bella breathed a sigh of relief. The first to speak was on her side. That had to be some sort of good luck. She rested her hands flat on the table, afraid to fidget or even to hope. But she glanced to the brother who'd agreed with her, her heart lifting. Emmett smiled supportively at her, and turned to face his family, as if waiting for them to challenge him. Two out of seven, she thought. At least it's a good start. Next to him, Rosalie began to shake her head slowly.

"You know my answer, Bella," she muttered, her blonde hair falling to cover her face. "I couldn't do that to someone."

Bella sighed, closing her eyes as she nodded. Yes. She knew before she came what Rosalie would say. She wasn't surprised.

"And me, as well." Bella's eyelashes made snapping noises as they separated, and she felt the confusion on her face.

Sitting next to his 'twin', Jasper stared down at his hands, not meeting her gaze. Jasper was the last one she expected to vote this way. He, of all people, should best understand the pain Edward was going through. Couldn't he feel it every time Edward walked into a room? Didn't he see it everytime he looked into his eyes? Didn't he, the one who'd grown so close to Edward, want it to stop? Didn't he want Edward to be happy, the way Bella did?

Didn't he want Edward's immortal life back, so he could spend time with him free of the thirst that gripped his throat?

Jasper's words were barely a whisper as they fell from his lips. "If I could go back, and change my decision... back to the last time we made a vote here–" The last time they voted here, at this table, on a night that was lost now to time. Bella knew what he was talking about. "I would. I didn't... understand Edward's position back then. I do now."

He said nothing else, and didn't glance up. Esme smiled at Bella, but it wasn't the same supporting look Emmett had given her. She felt her heart drop as she realized what was coming next.

"He has a chance for a new life. He could... oh, Bella, you have to see why I can't agree with you."

Bella felt heartbroken, betrayed. Esme had become her second mother. And now...

"Of course, Esme. I understand."

Alice said, in her tiny, musical voice, "You know I'm with you, Bella." Her touch on Bella's arm was cold, and comforting.

The sense of Deja Vu Bella felt then made her almost nauseous. So, here it was again. The final vote to be cast, the tie breaker, from the one who had the most influence anyways. Carlisle held all the cards, it seemed. In the end, no matter what the tally said, Carlisle's decision was the one that mattered, just as it had been on the last occasion they'd sat around this table. Bella had to rely completely on whatever he said next, only now it wasn't her own fate hanging in the balance. It was Edward's, and it seemed so much more important.

At the same time as she stiffened in anticipation, Bella felt the tension in her muscles starting to disappear. Carlisle had no qualms, no regrets about being what he was. Unlike the others, he didn't feel that immortality was the same thing as eternal damnation. He was, she figured, the easiest one to win over.

So why hadn't his answer been immediate, crisp, final, the way they always were?

Carlisle sighed and slowly tilted his head backwards, rolling his eyes in brief indecision. He looked at the ceiling but never at his family members, or at Bella. Outside, the rain pounded against the window, so that, when finally he murmured the single word that made all the difference, Bella could hardly hear it.

Hardly, but she did hear it, and his single word resonated with just the same volume and tenor as the sound of her world crashing down on her.

* * *

"What's wrong?" Edward inquired gently, watching Bella with a keen eye. She glanced at him out of the side of her eye, biting her lower lip.

"Nothing," she told him, but her voice was higher than usual, and it trembled, tears threatening to spill over.

"Bella?" he asked, shocked at her sudden change in attitude. She wrapped her arms around him, sobbing gently into the crook of his neck.

"Edward... I... I love you. You do know that, right?"

"Of course, Bella," he told her, his face drawing a confused blank. "I don't understand what's wrong, though. Won't you tell me?"

"Won't you tell _me_ what's wrong?"

Edward paused, taken off guard. "Is that what's bothering you?" he asked gently, saddened that he was the one making Bella cry. He wanted to confide in her, but he wanted even more to keep his feelings close to his chest, afraid of her reaction, afraid of what she, and everyone else, would think if they knew how he really felt.

He knew for certain that they wouldn't understand. That much was apparent in their behaviour nowadays.

Bella shrugged. "Partially. Not really. I guess I'm just under a lot of stress." She smiled up tightly at him, her eyes wide and beautiful as always. Edward felt his heart constrict. Bella had been everything he wanted in life, once not so long ago. He still loved her desperately, and wanted her by his side through all his troubles. But he wondered if he wasn't selfish for wanting more than that, too, for wanting to keep his family _and_ Bella.

Edward pulled her close to his chest the way he did all his secrets, closing his eyes and asking himself what, if anything, it was okay for him to wish for in life; and whether or not he deserved those things, or if he had the strength anymore to hold on to them.


	19. Chapter 18

**Tangle of Thorns**  
_Chapter 18_

Edward had never eaten _chocolate_ in the modern sense. Bella didn`t know what they had for chocolate in the early 1900s. In any case, it wasn`t Hershey Cookies'N'Cream bars, which he took to alarmingly.

"Edward," she tried, her voice broken. "You really should try eating _healthy_ foods. You did just get out of the hospital awhile ago..."

"No way," was Edward's answer. Then he wrinkled up his nose. "Actually, I don't think I can even eat _this_ anymore..." He pushed half of a chocolate bar away from him, clutching his stomach. Bella smiled indulgently.

"Didn't they tell you in medical school that eating so much chocolate all at once will give you a tummy ache?" she asked teasingly.

"Ha ha ha," Edward dead panned. Then his face twisted into agony. "They should have."

Bella said, "I'm going to start making some real food now," glancing at the clock. "And you're going to eat a normal meal," she added sternly.

Edward gave her a disgusted glance, but she thought that he might give in. He was in a particularly easy going mood, today. She sat up and left her bedroom, knowing that Edward would follow, in a bit. She didn't see him pause at her desk on the way out, fingering the map she and Jacob had scribbled on together when they were looking for the meadow all those months back. She didn't see him study it carefully, memorizing the route they'd taken, and after a brief moment of indecision, shove the map into his pocket.

* * *

Jasper wondered if he'd made the right decision. Should he have voted yes? Did Edward hate human life as much as Bella had thought? Jasper knew that Edward was unhappy. He couldn't avoid the realization. But everyday he thought Edward got better at coping. The pain didn't lessen, that was true, but Edward seemed less miserable. He acted normally and–

Maybe that wasn't coping. Maybe that was just hiding things.

But Jasper thought of Edward's precious, fragile bones and the gentle rhythm of his pulse and the way he looked when he _slept_. He thought of the way the dark bags under Edward's eyes actually disappeared for once as a person. Edward might not be eternally living anymore, but at least he would never be eternally weary again.

Should they have asked Edward? Bella was present at her vote, but– but– what if Edward said _yes_? What if they found out that humanity, after craving it for so many years, was only making one of them miserable. How would Rosalie handle that?

Worse yet, Jasper thought, what if Edward said no? If he revealed that he would rather live his life happily with Bella and never see them, or him, Jasper, again?

It was one thing to want that for Edward, but another to know that Edward wanted it as well.

He wanted to rush to Bella's house that very instant and take Edward back to their home, where he could keep him safe and nearby. But– Bella had a way of making Edward eat. And, Jasper admitted forlornly, a way of making him happy– which Jasper, despite all the power and emotion he had exerted, still hadn't been able to do.

* * *

The days faded slowly into each other. Edward spent his days with Bella, and she _fed_ him, actual food, and the Cullens were relived to see the weight that had previously been soughed off his bones slowly be regained. Jasper had made a habit of picking Edward up sometime late in the evening, and they would drive home in comfortable silence, or with an exchange of inane chatter.

Only once had it been tense, the time Jasper got to Bella's and found a number of wolves there, including the one that had nearly slaughtered Edward that day. But Angela was there, too, that girl from school, and he knew in an instant by the tenuous wave of her emotions as she gazed at Jasper that she knew. She had been told, and given the way the wolf– Embry– hovered over her, he understood why she was in on it. But it was alright, in the end. Edward seemed comfortable around most of the wolves, Seth particularly, and if Jasper observed that he made a point of being on the other side of the group as Embry, and that a few times when they drifted close Angela had put a gentle, soothing touch on the wolf's arm, he tried to ignore it.

But he couldn't ignore the blind terror he felt at having that creature in the same room as Edward, or the relief as he got into the car knowing that they would be putting distance between Edward and It.

"It's Bella's birthday tomorrow," Jasper noted as the Volvo drifted almost silently down the street.

"Mm. She's snapped at me every time I mention it," Edward murmured, but Jasper felt the twinge of amusement that throbbed through the air around them. "Since the last party was such a disaster, I think she just wants us to ignore it."

Jasper felt his stomach turn so icy it burned. But Edward's voice, and his emotional aura, had no resentment.

Edward sighed, flipping on his CD player and settling down into the heated seat. Edward sang along gently, and Jasper felt a calm sense of contentment in hearing his voice.

"I will follow you...night...each morning..." Edward had a funny habit of only singing every other word, or every other line, seemingly at random. But Jasper didn't mind. He didn't care that Edward had the attention span of a pea somedays, obviously caught in an entirely other world of thought, or that the air was occasionally impossible to breathe with Edward around because it was just so precious.

He didn't even care that he sounded completely foolish when he sang the next line, and Edward laughed along with him, both recognizing the silliness, or that eventually, this would all come to an end, because, really, that was the nature of duets.

"_Say you love me..."_

"_You know I do."_

* * *

Edward gazed pensively out the window at the dark trees, the rain pounding mercilessly against the pane. He hated the darkness and the silence of the house. He could only hear wind and rain. This wouldn't have bothered him if he didn't know that there were others in the house, moving so silently that he might have felt he was alone. Especially when he knew that each and every one of them were hyper aware of his presence, his heart beat, his breath.

The trees swayed gently in the wind, their great shapes swaying without sound. He wished he could regain that silence of movement. He missed the precision of his eyesight. His strength. He missed being able to _hear_, not just well, but to really hear, inside people, their hearts, lungs, minds. He peered into the darkness, eyes squinted, cursing his human eyesight.

It didn't help to remind himself that there was nothing to see in their backyard, because there might have been, for all he knew, but he just didn't have the sight to view it. Something moved, then, beneath the bough of a tree he was staring at, human shaped and small, and Edward jumped in horror, backing away from the window.

"Edward?"

He spun around to see Alice standing on the other side of the room, having obviously come down the stairs just then, when she heard his heart rate increase.

He looked back to the trees again, warily, and realized that he must have been wrong. Her reflection was back behind him, growing as she neared closer. There hadn't been anything there, he realized angrily, only Alice's shadow on the glass.

He breathed out in frustration, his sister's cool fingers on his shoulder doing nothing to ease it. Edward hated this life. And hated that everyone he loved would hate him for that.

* * *

Bella woke up groggily, staring at her calendar with vague hatred for just a moment. The little box with 13 in it wasn't particularly special, but it might as well have been marked with the red marker that she hadn't yet had to use on the calendar this month. The 13 was mocking her. Ugh. 19 years old.

It doesn't matter, Bella, she reminded herself. He'll grow older, too, and–

Bella sat up suddenly, heart pounding as an earlier thought rushed back with vengeance. She rushed to the calendar, flipping it back to the previous months. Sure enough, she'd marked dark red lines through the first week of June. And the first week of July.

But not through the first week of August. Had she had her period? Bella struggled to remember... She recalled fogginess and sickness and Edward's cold lips on her forehead.

It was now the thirteenth of September, and this month's week 1 was as empty as last month's. It was Bella's birthday. And the day she realized that she was pregnant.


	20. Chapter 19

****

Tangle of Thorns

Chapter 19

Bella's bed was comfortable. She thought she might stay there for a month. Maybe forever.

19 years old. Funny how she'd been dreading his day for so long, dreading the idea that she should be so old when Edward was still youthful. Funny how 19 now seemed far too young for everything she had to deal with.

The rain beat a staccato tempo on the window pane. Staring at it, Bella's reflection was reduced to a distorted mass by the raindrops.

Bella wondered if this child would tear her and Edward apart the way she had her parents. She wondered how immoral it would be if she quietly headed to a clinic and got rid of it without Edward knowing. She wondered if she'd have the heart. She hoped the answer would come to her soon enough.

The day passed. Bella lie in bed and waited. And waited. And slept.

* * *

Edward awoke with a start, and knew by his clock that it was late afternoon. But with the curtains he had recently hung drawn shut as they were, it may have been darkest night. He remembered the dream he'd had with a shiver. Swinging his legs over the edge of his bed, Edward stumbled slowly toward the door, rubbing his eyes.

He stopped instantly, his heart pounding, eyes squinting at the darkness. Sure enough, there was a dark shape just at the end of the hall. He reflexively stepped to the side, wanting to be out of the other person's sight. Surely a family member would have announced themselves. If it were Jasper he would have been sitting right beside Edward's bed. But neither would his family let someone dangerous to him in the house.

Edward stepped in front of the door once more, letting his eyes adjust. The mirror at the end of the hall glinted. It was his reflection. As it had been Alice's last night. And in his dream, as it had been nothing but a shadow on the edge of his vision...

* * *

Bella shook the rain from her coat, smiling as she thought she probably looked a little like a dog coming out of a river. Emmett opened the door before she could even knock, as someone almost always did, and welcomed her inside with a grin.

Bella stepped past him easily, pulling off her coat and hanging it up.. She turned to greet him, expecting a rather obnoxious birthday welcome. When she hadn't shown up in the morning, the Cullens had likely not expected her to come at all. But here she was, after she had already eaten birthday dinner with Charlie, bracing herself for Emmett's obnoxiousness. Her smile faltered when she saw the look on his face.

"Bella–? Are you alright?" he asked, brows knitted together.

Emmett leaned over her, eyes roaming her body.

"I'm fine, Emmett. What– Emmett!"

Bella leaned away as Emmett sniffed at the air around her head.

"You smell funny, Bella," Emmett told her.

Bella felt her cheeks blossom in humiliation, and prayed that Emmett would think she thought it had been an insult. She knew exactly what he meant by "funny," of course, but she hadn't realized they would be able to pick up on it, especially since she couldn't even be a month into her... condition. Carlisle strode into the room, eyes alert, and she knew he'd overheard.

He paused not far from Bella, eyes wide. Of course, Bella thought bitterly, Carlisle had recognized the scent immediately, with so many years of experience. Smiling at Bella, Carlisle murmured, "I think Bella will be just fine, Emmett, no worries."

He drifted from the room much more calmly than he had entered. Bella hoped he wasn't going to tell Esme. She cringed as she imagined Esme's excited face, and Alice's shopping for clothes, and Rosalie's staunch hatred... She hadn't even told Edward. She wasn't even sure she was going to. Of course, he would find out eventually... but...

"Bella?"

She jumped, realizing Edward was standing in front of her, gazing at her worriedly.

Looking around she realized that Jasper had entered, too, and was staring at her with the same concerned look as both of his brothers. Edward, she imagined, was the only one whose concern involved her spacing out.

Emmett confirmed this by murmuring to Jasper, "Carlisle said it's nothing."

Edward looked between them in confusion, but Bella only shrugged, deciding right then that she could tell him later, at a more opportune time. Perhaps she should wait for his health to improve some more, before dropping news like that on him. Bella placed her hand in his, noting how much stronger it felt than it had last week, or even a few days ago. Still, a little more time for him to work up his strength before she told him wouldn't hurt.

* * *

Carlisle had said nothing about Bella's health, though Jasper knew he and Emmett hadn't been mistaken that day. It had hung like a cloud over both his emotions and Emmett's for the remainder of her birthday, and for days after. He had waited tensely for two days before the two of them broke down and asked, but Carlisle waved them away with a calm smile. Jasper was shocked to realize that he felt the same during those few days as he had when Edward was in the hospital. It wasn't as serious, of course, since Bella seemed to be alright, but the anxiousness he felt was that of someone worried for a sibling.

Jasper had always known that Bella would become his newest sister, but he had never acknowledged it before on any level deeper than his thoughts. It was the first time he realized that Bella had become his sister on an emotional level as well as an intellectual level. He fretted for her well-being, at the same time as he rationalized by telling himself that Carlisle didn't seem worried; and he would tell them, if something were truly wrong. In fact, Jasper noticed that Carlisle's usual reaction to his inquiries seemed to be an overwhelming sense of happiness.

Jasper didn't worry about Bella for long; soon he noticed that she wasn't the only one whose scent was a bit off lately.

"Edward?" he asked, leaning down to sniff at his brother's neck. Edward looked at him with wide eyes, no doubt wondering if Jasper had been hunting recently, or perhaps if Jasper was just plain weird. "Are ou feeling alright? Your scent isn't right."

"I'm fine, Jasper." Edward continued studying Jasper's face for a moment. He smiled, touching Jasper's arm. "Maybe you're just getting used to it."

"No, I still..." Jasper's brow furrowed. "It's different."

"Well, I'm quite alright," Edward assured him, and try as he might he couldn't find a hint of deception in the tenuous strains of emotion he felt coming from Edward. So he supposed that it must be the truth– at least as far as Edward could tell. And since Edward staunchly refused any medical check ups or consultations, even from Carlisle, that would have to be enough for Jasper.

* * *

"Edward?" Bella's heart pounded within her chest.

"What's wrong?"

"Are you happy?"

Edward blanched, and Bella felt her hopes die with that reaction. "Of course, Bella. Why would you ask that?"

That Edward had not taken to life as a human would have been tolerable, Bella thought, if it was just the two of them. They could vote again, they could throw Edward's opinion into the mix. If the Cullens heard from his own lips how deeply he wanted to be changed once more... if it made him happy... Bella would have been fine with that.

But now she had to know. Did he hate this new, finite existence? Did he hate that someday his family would have to leave Forks, and potentially him? Did he still want college and marriage? ...Children?

Bella bit her lip. Edward's opinion on so many things had changed. It would mean the world to her to know that this one thing hadn't.

"If... if you could go back in time Edward, or if Carlisle agreed to change you back... would you ask him to? Do you not like the way things are now?"

"Bella..." Edward breathed in deeply and took her face in his hands. "I don't know what I was thinking, wishing to be human when I could have made you one of us." Bella froze. He did hate it. He hated everything about human life. "...Because the only thing that matters is that we're together. If I could go back in time, my only concern would be making sure that we can live our lives together... compatibly. If that meant changing you... then yes I would. As far as asking Carlisle now to change me back... why bother? We're together. We're both human, so we can stay together. I love you. Don't ever forget that."

So in other words, Bella thought, noting that he hadn't answered her final question, the answer was yes. Yes. All he wanted was to be with his family. Granted, he wanted Bella to be a part of that family, but not a new one.

* * *

Rosalie cornered Bella as she was leaving.

"What is it, Rosalie?" Bella snapped, wrenching open her truck door and climbing in without glancing twice at the blonde. It had seemed before all of this that Rosalie might get over her hatred of Bella; now she knew that the chances of Rosalie ever forgiving her existence were small and pitiful. Bella started the ignition and pulled out of the driveway, jumping as she noted the baleful black gaze trained on her throat. Rosalie was in the passenger seat and she hadn't even noticed.

"I know what you're doing, Isabella." Rosalie's voice was cold and hard. _Like her heart,_ Bella thought angrily.

"And what's that?" she sneered.

"I heard your little conversation with Edward. Is that all that matters to you? Becoming one of us? Is the only thing you care about power and beauty and immortality?" Rosalie's words were a low hiss, and her fingers were tight around Bella's arm. She stopped the truck on the side of the road, certain she wouldn't be able to drive like this. "You're trying to convince him he's unhappy."

"I'm doing no such thing, Rosalie," Bella replied in a steel voice. Her heart was hammering; she was positive there would be hand shaped bruises on her arm in the morning.

"You have life, opportunities, but you try to throw it away."

Bella recognized the anger, resentment and jealousy in the perfect face in front of her.

"I'm not," she insisted. "I just want him to be happy. I just want to know..."

"How can he be happy when you constantly shove your pretentious little insinuations down his throat? How can you talk to him like that, suggesting you would want him to go back to _this..._ this damned existence? When he has _everything_ already! You say that you love him, Isabella, but I think you mustn't, if you would want to destroy him once more."

"All I want is for us to be together!" Bella exploded. "I don't care if we're vampires or humans or fucking homeless poor slobs!" She wrenched her arm from Rosalie's grip, not caring that it meant dragging the blonde's nails across her skin. She knew she was bleeding, but she didn't care. Rosalie didn't seem to either, thankfully. "I just want Edward happy, and if that means existing rather than living... fine! I'm not doing something wrong," Bella added, voice dangerously low. Rosalie's sneer suggested that she seriously disagreed. "Is it so wrong, Rosalie?" Bella ploughed ahead. "To want someone to share time with? So then what is Emmett doing here?"

Rosalie froze, golden eyes boring into Bella's face.

"Does he hate you?" Bella snapped, "For damning him? Does he resent you, does he just wish you'd left him there to _die_ because it would be so much better than life with _you–_"

The force of Rosalie's slap made Bella reel. She was glad that it only sent her as far as the head rest, vaguely aware that if her neck wasn't broken, if her jaw wasn't broken... she was lucky.

Her head span for long minutes, but when her gaze finally cleared and she could form coherent thought, Rosalie had disappeared.


	21. Chapter 20

**Tangle of Thorns**

_Chapter 20_

"Do you hate me, Emmett?"

"What? No, Rose, I– You know I love you."

Laying beneath the outstretched branches of an old tree, like children in a cradle, a pair of lovers enmeshed in each other's arms. Emmett rubbed Rosalie's hair soothingly, saying quietly, "Rose... I don't need children or a beating heart... I'm happy with what _you_ have given me; what you gave me so many years ago and have given me ever since. This is everything I could want."

He almost thought his stone heart thrummed when the angel in his arms whispered, "You don't think I'm a monster then. You don't feel like I've taken away a greater opportunity... for life beyond the grave?"

"Rosalie," Emmett murmured into her hair, "This _is_ my eternal life beyond the grave."

* * *

Edward knew he was unhealthy. He liked to think that his body was adjusting, but he had been to medical school before, and he did remember, though vaguely, how it felt to be a healthy teenage boy. It didn't feel like this.

Edward ached everywhere in the mornings; and in the nights, if he were being honest, he absolutely shook with pain. He walked through their home with the straight back and steady stride of a man in good sorts, but he was anything but.

He had hoped, for awhile anyway, that a sensible front would be enough to keep his family's suspicions at bay. What he forgot, somehow, was that with their noses and ears and in some cases extra sensory abilities, they could easily discern what lie beneath the exterior.

"Are you alright?" Carlisle asked one day, concern etched across his perfect, smooth forehead.

"I'm fine," Edward murmured in response, trying not to sound short or defensive.

"There's something a little off about your scent," Carlisle suggested meaningfully. "Perhaps we should run a few quick tests."

"No," Edward replied shortly. "That won't be necessary. I'm fine."

"I just want to make sure you're ok," Carlisle told him in a light, sensitive tone.

"I assure you I'm quite alright," Edward said in the most polite manner he could dignify. Standing quickly, he swept from the room. If it wasn't with the animalistic litheness of an immortal creature who walked the earth at night and day, at least it was with all the dignity and grace of a man who'd been raised in an upper class Chicago home in the early 1900s. Which, all things considered, may have been the best way for Edward to leave Carlisle.

* * *

She stood beneath the trees behind their sprawling home. The rain beat at her, and the wind was merciless and cold against her skin. But she was little more than an unnoticed rock.

No one had noticed her when she was alive; she had hated the world for it.

And no one noticed her now, but it was the one thing that made her so valuable to the one who had hired her.

She watched them leave one by one and in groups throughout the day. One of the men was always at the hospital. He seemed to work there.

Many others were hunting for the weekend.

It left only the tragically beautiful blonde in the house. And the human she had been sent to find. She could wait, though. Now wasn't the time. She would know it, when it came.

* * *

Rosalie felt vicious, but only because, sometime between now and the moment she had felt her palm connect with Bella's face, she had realized that she loved Edward. He had been her brother too long for that to change out of jealousy. And perhaps, there wasn't much to be jealous of. She realized that no matter what had happened in the past, she had never felt as worried for her family as she did now.

"You shouldn't let her make you feel this way," Rosalie told him, her voice coloured with frustration.

"She doesn't," Edward said bleakly. "I do it myself."

He sighed, and looked away.

"I used to think it would be so great," he said, and trailed off.

The house was quiet. Edward's hand rested gently upon the doorknob, and his eyes were distant. Rosalie reached out to touch his elbow, but changed her mind and dropped her arm to her side. She felt her brow wrinkling up as he continued.

"I was convinced I would be so much happier. But now, aside from Bella, I'm so..."

He didn't finish his sentence, instead turning his deep, unfathomable gaze on her. Rosalie wondered what word filled that blank, searching her brother's face for the answer, and thought that maybe she found it.

He sighed, a frustrated sound.

"So here I am, human at last," he muttered. Rosalie shivered when he reached up and brushed the back of his hand and his warm, soft knuckles against her cheek. His lips turned up, but it was a timid, heartbreaking image, and his next words seemed more quiet than the grass as it grows. "_I long to be like you_,_ sis_."

He turned away, pushing the door open and heading out into the night. Rosalie was immobile. The door almost clicked completely shut before she followed him, stopping on the bottom step where the rain splashed her face.

"Like what, Edward?" she called angrily after him. "Like _dead_?"

Edward swivelled slowly around to look at her, and though the pounding rain only emphasized the distance between them, she still heard his every whispered word, and every nuance of his indifferent tone.

"Dead? No, that can't be right." He shrugged in return to the desperate, questioning look she felt flit across her face, still smiling that same, worn smile. "I'm not grieving for you, am I?"

She held her breath as she watched his solitary figure retreat into the darkness. Rosalie reached up to press her fingers to the spot he had touched, but the warmth was already gone. She remembered his unfinished sentence.

"Oh, Edward," she murmured. The rain felt like tears running down her skin.

"You're not alone."

* * *

When Edward showed up at Bella's house, his mood was off.

"What's wrong?" she asked, taking his jacket and ushering him inside, to the kitchen where it was warmer.

"Rosalie..." he said in a peculiar tone.

Bella froze. Had Rosalie told Edward about the conversation they'd had? Sometimes Bella regretted the things she said. Other times... she felt someone needed to say it. Best it was her, she supposed. Rosalie already hated her, anyway. Bella forced herself to look questioningly into Edward's face, but he only shrugged.

"She's worried," he told her, and his tone and face were distracted. With a frown, he added, "They all are."

Bella breathed deeply. "Are you?"

Edward's eyes snapped out of their unfocused stare. They locked gazes.

Finally, he whispered, "yes. I am."

Bella leaned forward to kiss his lips, and though he went through the motions of putting his arms around his waist and dipping his head toward hers, she felt distinctly as if somehow, she wasn't being kissed back.

* * *

Bella was distracted when Jasper showed up the next day. Her thoughts were on Edward and his behaviour the night before. He had left very soon after he'd shown up. He had been distant, and... Bella shrugged to herself and sprinkled comet across the tub's surface. It was about time she got some cleaning done.

She hated that she felt rejected. Edward was going through a hard time, and he had his reasons for doing what he did.

She knew that, but she couldn't help the way she felt. She could, however, try to distract herself.

"Hello?" Jasper's voice drifted up from downstairs. He sounded worried.

Bella wiped the sweat from her brow and darted down the stairs.

"Hey Jasper, what's up?"

"I came to get Edward, but I see he isn't here."

"No, he hasn't come by all day."

Jasper's expression was one of extreme distress. "But he's been gone for hours... You haven't spoken to him? He could be anywhere."

"He probably just needed some time alone to think, Jasper," Bella soothed. "He seemed upset yesterday, so I bet he's just searching for some peace and quiet."

"Still, he shouldn't be wandering about alone," Jasper fretted. "It's dangerous."

Bella could only laugh, remembering Edward having similar reactions when he had still been a vampire.

"He might be at his meadow," she offered. "Do you know where that is?"

"I– no. But I know the general direction. I'm sure I can find it... Thank you, Bella."

"No problem, Jasper," Bella told him, a little worried herself as she wondered if even _Edward_ could find the meadow anymore.

* * *

It wasn't a sunny day, but there were no clouds in the sky. Jasper picked up Edward's scent easily enough once he was several hundred yards into the woods. It appeared Edward had come from another direction and wandered off to the east. Jasper followed the scent at a break neck pace, terror seeping through him. His own terror.

What if Edward was hurt? What if–? He heard two sets of heart beats, and burst through the clearing to find Edward and a young native boy staring at him as if they'd been expecting him. Jasper recognized the boy as one of the wolves, but one he'd never been introduced to outside his wolf form. He couldn't be sure, but he guessed it must be Seth.

Jasper sagged in relief as he approached them.

"You had us worried," he accused.

Edward sighed. "I can handle being outside the house on my own for ten minutes, Jasper."

"You've been gone for hours, and no one knew where you were... I know you can handle yourself, but you could at least tell us where you're going."

Seth– was it Seth?– was snickering quietly throughout the exchange.

"Oops," he joked, "I forgot to call your babysitter and ask for permission for us to have a play date."

"Get stuffed," Edward muttered, but he smiled, and though Jasper could sense his annoyance, it seemed to be dissipating slowly.

He settled down on the ground in front of them and they resumed their conversation. Jasper grinned. Music, of course, Edward's passion. He was trying to impress upon Seth the wonders of indie rock, but Seth stuck stubbornly by older classics.

They were cut off by the terrible howling of a wolf in the distance.

Seth sat upright immediately, listening intently, perhaps analyzing the tone, translating the pitch when to Jasper it sounded like every other howl he'd ever heard.

"Is everything alright?" Edward asked concernedly. "Nothing's happened?"

Seth had his head cocked to the side, but grinned foolishly after a moment.

"Nah, it's just Leah. Dinner's ready."

Edward laughed. "Well, don't let us keep you from your food," he teased as he settled back into the grass, resting his elbows on the ground.

Seth bounded away, waving over his shoulder. When he disappeared into the woods, Jasper heard him shucking his pants and then the telltale boom of the phase.

After a moment's silence, Edward laid back completely on the ground, staring at the clouds above. He closed his eyes, smiling serenely. That was fine. Jasper had nothing against Edward wanting to do anything his heart desired, as long as Jasper was there to make sure he was safe.

* * *

Bella shuddered in horror as she stared down into the toilet bowl. Blood. Blood and something that looked like tissue. Covering her hands with her face, as if she could hide her tears from what might have been her child, she reached over and flushed it down.


	22. Chapter 21

We're definitely nearing the end, folks. Tangle is down to its last 5-6 chapters, I believe (including the epilogue).

**Tangle of Thorns**

_Chapter 21_

Bella dreamt of holding a little girl in her arms, and when she woke there was only emptiness and rain. And Edward, of course.

He showed up in the afternoon looking tired and nervous.

It had been this way for three weeks now. Glancing over his shoulder, Bella could see the orange of the trees in the distance and the faded yellow of the grass. Tomorrow was the last day of October. Bella touched Edward's face with her fingertips and remembered the days when October meant trick or treating and vampires and ghosts. Bella was too old for candy, and she was happy with the human company she had now. But the ghost of a little girl lurked over her shoulder every day.

"Bella," Edward said only before he embraced her. He lead her to the sofa with one of her hands clasped in his, and they sat with his knees meeting her own but his gaze seeming to avoid her face.

"Edward?" Bella asked. "Is everything okay?"

She wanted him to say yes, because she could only deal with her own problems right now. Bella knew that any more stress would break her.

She wanted him to say no, because it wasn't right for her to mourn their child while he didn't feel a thing. Couldn't Edward sense the gaping hole in their future like Bella could? Didn't he wake up in the morning and hate the world for pulling such a cruel trick on them? She didn't think she deserved this pain, or the harsh punishment of cringing and crying when she'd used the bathroom after her cycle returned to normal. She knew the blood between her legs two weeks ago had been her period, but it felt like the blood of her child.

"Edward?" she asked again when he didn't respond, her voice cracking. Suddenly the world was too much with her, and her lips trembled of their own volition.

Bella whimpered, feeling the wetness of tears across her cheeks. She could swear she heard her little girl crying.

"Bella? Bella!" Edward pulled her into his arms. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset you."

Edward's hands rubbed soothingly against her back. Bella remembered how it had felt the few times they'd been intimate, and–

She froze. Bella could never replace her lost child. She could move on, though. And Edward with her.

She sniffed, wiping her tears. Bella kissed Edward like there was no tomorrow and no need for air. "I love you," she told him fiercely, shifting her weight to bring her closer to him.

"I love you, too– UM, Bella? Mmppf." Edward's next words were muffled by Bella's tongue. He seemed reluctant, but only for a moment before surrendering to her touch.

* * *

"Bella?" Edward mumbled sleepily into Bella's ear, pulling her into him. The warmth ran across her like a blast of hot air as one leaves their air-conditioned home in Phoenix. "Did you hear that?"

"What?" she asked, glancing at the clock and guessing that Charlie wouldn't be home for an hour.

"A voice."

"No," Bella muttered. "Go back to sleep."

"There's... a woman's voice," Edward insisted, but when Bella only grunted in response he rubbed his nose across her neck, settling down once more.

Their breathing evened out, and Bella let her eyes drift shut, content in the peace, until abruptly Edward sat up.

"How can you not hear that?" he asked sharply.

Bella glanced around blearily. "There's nothing," she snapped impatiently, but in the following silence she almost thought she heard a little girl calling out for her mother.

* * *

Jacob wasn't meant for Seattle.

He was meant for his pack, for the rain there and the beach and the woods. Not the drizzle of Seattle and the flattened roof tops. Not a city scape as cold and unwelcoming as a vampire's gaze. Not an empty, lonely life in a place where he could never find some quiet. And maybe not for Bella Swan, he admit reluctantly.

Jacob had never been a spiteful guy. He'd lived happy and wishing the same on others. If becoming a werewolf– being fated to a certain group of friends and power that carried too much responsibility to be really fun– hadn't changed that, then why should one woman?

Who was Bella Swan to hold Jake away from his home and his happiness? She was no one in that regard. But she was a friend, and he was not enough Jake the spiteful jerk, and too much Jacob Black, to not wish a friend happiness.

Maybe it was time to go back home.

* * *

Happiness. Bella thought she might never experience it again. Edward didn't feel the irreplaceable hole in their lives that she did, and it was a gaping chasm between them. She waited, and she prayed her period wouldn't come next week.

And in the meantime, she wished Angela would die a painful, horrible death... Okay, a lie. Who could wish that on Angela? But Bella did want to beat something to a pulp. If not Angela, then something else.

Angela and Embry were so fucking happy together, it made Bella nauseous.

Angela's smile was a gentle glow that radiated from within, and the warmth of her hand on Bella's arm as she spoke was a fire from Hell.

"We exchanged rings," Angela was saying. "We probably won't get married for a few more years, just because my parents expect it. But I know he's the one– well, obviously." She smiled at the joke that so few would get, and Bella grinned tightly in return. After all, it wasn't Angela's fault that Bella's life sucked right now. That every tick of the clock might be bringing her closer to the horrible realization that her plan the day before hadn't worked.

_Please, please, I need to be pregnant._

"Can I see?" Bella asked out of politeness.

Angela blushed, but her eyes sparkled with pride as she lifted her left hand and extended it. It was a pride so humble and grateful that Bella couldn't even hate her. She wanted to, but couldn't.

"It's beautiful, Angela," Bella told her truthfully. "What is the one you got for Embry like?"

"Well, we decided to get rings that sort of matched. They're both genuine silver, but his is a band with a chain set into it."

"I'm sure it's– perhaps beautiful isn't the right word," Bella muttered. Stupid shiny, silver rings. She wanted to crush them. She wanted to crush something, _anything,_ wanted to fucking ruin the world like it had ruined her.

Angela laughed freely. "It's _manly _and _unassuming_." She lowered her voice. "_I _think it's lovely. But that's not in my official script."

Bella wanted to hate Angela's happiness, but she could only smile and nod and hate someone else instead. Someone who should be just as miserable as her. Maybe she could make them so.

* * *

Edward was glad to finally be trusted driving again– He was unsure why he'd been ushered away from it to begin with. For the last few days he'd been free to come and go as he wanted. It was nice– the freedom– but having Bella expect him to come as he once would have every day made him a little sick.

Every time he looked into her beautiful face, Edward remembered her tears– not just recently. She had cried over him too many times to count, since they'd first met. She didn't deserve the pain he put her through, and he didn't deserve her.

But because Edward felt his remaining time with Bella coming to a close, he clung for dear life onto her presence. He spent as much time with her as he could, ignoring the odd sensation that his mind was unraveling, that the voice he kept hearing– a bare whisper on the wind– wasn't real. He loved Bella Swan; that was all that mattered, and when he woke up one day to find her gone after they'd fallen asleep together on the sofa while watching a movie, he panicked.

"Bella?" Edward called frantically. The house was silent. Bella had been acting strangely for a few days now, distant and cold, and he couldn't help but think he might lose her sooner than he planned. Edward fought to calm down, trying to reason out where she might be. He wished Jasper were there. Jasper could always make him feel better, even if those good feelings disappeared when the blond left the room.

Edward froze as he heard a smash. For a moment the pattering of rain was the tinkling of glass, and–

Edward advanced on the front door, and when he opened it to head out found he could walk no further. With a slack jaw, Edward watched as Bella took a baseball bat to every window in his Volvo.

"Um," he said, meaning to interrupt her. But his voice couldn't be heard over the rain– or the creaking metal and flying glass, or Bella's panting, or her hysterical sobs. "Um," Edward repeated half to himself.

Bella was screaming half nonsensically as she kicked and scratched and beat the car, but Edward did understand a few words– mostly "fuck you" and his name.

"Bella?"

Edward slowly crossed the pavement and reached out to touch her shoulder. She swung around, brandishing her bat, but it clattered to the ground as she stared at him.

"Oh, Edward," Bella sobbed, flinging her arms around his neck.

"Um."

"I love you," she told him, hiccoughing. Edward wondered why she chose to express it by destroying his car, feeling as if a deep haze had settled over his mind. Belatedly he thought that approaching an angry woman with a baseball bat had been a bad idea. Good thing she dropped it.

"But I'm just so– angry with you. Why don't you care?"

"I care about you," Edward said, cocooning Bella in his embrace.

"Why didn't you care about _her_?" Bella asked.

"Who?"

Bella sniffled against Edward's chest. "No one. I'm sorry. I don't even know what I'm talking about. The stress is too much. Everything's so confusing right now..." Bella looked up into Edward's eyes with horror on her face. "Oh God I'm so sorry, I have no idea what made me do that."

"I– I can afford a new car, Bella." It was true. Edward could afford to replace anything in his life. Anything except Bella. He squeezed her in his arms and swore that he would never let go. At least, not until the time came. And then he would have no choice anyway.


	23. Chapter 22

**Tangle of Thorns**

_Chapter 22_

"It's time to move."

"Today?"

"Yes. I grow weary of waiting. I have only limited time to be away. We've barely a window of opportunity."

"Of course, mistress."

* * *

Bella remembered the time Edward had said: _It will be as if I didn't exist._

Bella didn't think she could live in a world without Edward, but she could didn't think she'd have any problems surviving in a world without vampires. Vampires don't exist, Bella thought to herself, wishing it true. Just you and Edward. And the life you can have now. Together.

To say that the reaction of the Cullen's when they returned home, first Carlisle on his way back from work, to find a devastated Volvo in the driveway was mild was, well– less than truthful.

Eventually they had trickled home in small groups and one by one and been appalled, and in a few cases, angered.

Edward didn't care. He had berated himself again and again for not noticing how upset she was.

"I should have been– better," he said, apparently struggling to find the right word. "Supportive. I'm sorry, Bella, this is _my_ fault." He had paused. "I would like a new car, though. This may be a good opportunity. The Volvo was getting tired."

Currently Edward was discussing new cars with an incredulous Emmett, who was also trying to cook them a meal.

"She smashed your car... You're _happy_?"

"Of course!" Edward insisted, beaming at Bella. He became somber again and, capturing Bella's full attention with his gaze, so green it felt like falling into a forest, he said, "I really am sorry I didn't see how upset you were, Bella." From the corner of her eye, Bella saw Emmett wrinkle his nose. She wasn't sure if it was because he thought Edward should punch her, or he didn't understand the cooking instructions. She was pretty sure the next step was simple enough– take it out of the oven before it burns. "But I think that, on the whole, this is a good thing. I mean–" His lips twitched. "We've done our airing of grievances... I get a new car..."

Bella sighed.

"You should be so much more angry with me than you are. But you always have been a little backward," she joked.

Edward's smile only faltered when Emmett insisted the food was ready and placed a large plate in front of Edward.

He still hadn't taken well to eating and this was Emmett, after all.

Alice rushed through the front door and slammed it behind her, a smile on her face. Edward paused with his fork halfway to his mouth. Bella thought he looked grateful.

"Baseball!"

"When?"

"Ten minutes? Things have been so hectic, I haven't been looking for the weather. But it's the perfect time for a ball game."

Bella was surprised when Rosalie drifted into the kitchen from the hallway. "Emmett and I can bring the gear and meet you guys there?"

"Right on!" Alice exclaimed, winking at Edward and Bella. "Jasper and I can carry you two, if you want to watch."

"Yes!" Edward said in a rush, standing so quickly Bella had to grab his chair to stop from toppling over. He made a beeline for the front door– Bella suspected he was more concerned with getting away from Emmett's masterpiece than anything else.

"Edward, wait!" she called. He froze with his hand on the doorknob, looking at her over his shoulder and then, terrified, at the untouched plate.

"Your coat," she reminded him. Edward grabbed it and rushed outside with a streak on his heels that must have been Jasper. Bella turned to Emmett. "Just put it in some Tupperware, Emmett, he'll eat it when he gets back."

"You think so?" Emmett asked, looking a little dejected.

"Yes. I'll make sure of it."

Emmett smiled, and Alice cleared her throat to get everyone's attention.

"Uh, there is... one more thing. I may or may not have invited the wolves to play... What? I thought we were trying to be more friendly now!"

* * *

Bella, with a little more foresight than Edward, brought blankets. She spread two out on the ground, one on top the other to keep out the damp, and spread another across her lap and Edward's.

They were joined quickly by the wolves. Bella was glad to see that the wolf girls, as she called them, had come as well, armed with blankets and jackets like Bella. With broad smiles they came to sit by Edward and Bella, but she was shocked to see Embry come with. He sat between Angela and Bella.

"Not that I mind," Bella murmured, feeling Embry's warmth seep toward her and her slight shivering subside. "But why aren't you playing?"

Embry frowned slightly before shrugging. "Can't. I'm having a hard time phasing again, too."

"Oh, that's too bad." Bella felt her brow wrinkle in concern. She wondered what it meant, if the illness was persisting and returning. For Embry, but mostly for Edward.

"Hmm.. I guess you aren't quite as warm as a wolf usually is," Bella mused.

"Yeah, I've dropped to a constant temperature of around 101..." Embry told her with a smile. He turned his gaze to Angela and his face lit up. "But I don't care. I've got more important things to think about."

Bella rolled her eyes. "What a softie," she muttered loud enough for it to be obvious.

Embry snickered while the girls fought back laughter, and Edward smiled just barely.

"Seriously, though," Embry continued. "I feel great. Healthwise, I mean. Not phasing sucks, but I feel bloody fantastic. It's like I've been invigorated." He smiled in Angela's direction again. "Hmm... Ever since I had this ring put on my finger."

"Oh, God," someone uttered with obvious disgust. Bella looked up to see Leah standing above them. "You're pathetic, man."

Embry shrugged. "But happy. Pathetic... but happy."

Bella turned away and buried her face in Edward's shoulder. She wouldn't have guessed so before... Her life was definitely pathetic for a little while, but all things considered, maybe Embry wasn't the only one who would get a happy ending.

* * *

Edward wrapped his arm loosely around Bella's shoulders, curling himself in toward her warmth. He was cold, and tired, and he hated to admit it but he was hungry. He couldn't even begin to focus on movement without a pounding headache so he stared at the trees.

Something flashed, and he blinked, eyes widening for a moment. Edward peered at the thick foliage, certain that for one second, just one second, there had been the silhouette of a slight person there–

Jesus. Edward rubbed a hand over his eyes.

"I'm so bloody tired I'm seeing things," he told Bella.

Bella pulled away from Edward a little, peering at him with round eyes.

"Maybe we should head back," she told him.

"Hey, my jeep's just beyond those trees. You can take it back."

Edward looked up blearily, unsure when Emmett had gotten there.

"Are you sure? The stuff..."

"It's fine, Bella, we can carry the gear back. Come on, I'll show you where the jeep is."

Bella and Edward got to their feet, and Emmett grabbed the blankets, leading them through the woods.

"Hey, can I drive?" Bella asked when they got to the monstrous vehicle.

"You sure you aren't gonna smash it to bits?"

"We've left all the baseball bats with the others."

"Hmm. Good point. Sure." Edward climbed into the passenger seat while Emmet gave Bella a lecture on his Jeep, and how it was precious, and how sometimes the gearshift needed to be jiggled if you hit a bump, and–

Edward was asleep when the gentle rocking he felt stopped.

He sat up, breathing in quickly. "Huh?"

"I drove the Jeep," Bella told him proudly. They were parked outside his house. "I didn't even need to jiggle the gearshift." She looked at the clock and winced. "Admittedly I drove _really _slow to avoid bumps, but there's still something to say for it, right?"

"Sure," Edward murmured, putting his arm around her once more as they headed inside. "How long _did_ it take to get back?"

"Oh... 40 minutes. So, only twice as long as usual. But that's okay. It's not like we don't have plenty of time."

Edward smiled, and he wished it were true.

Edward woke in near-darkness.

"Where are the others?" he asked Bella, sitting next to him on the edge of the bed.

"Still playing ball. Jasper keeps calling to check up on you. And Alice said things have been quite competitive, so she sees about 15 more inevitable rematches. Are you hungry? I think you should eat."

Edward sighed. "Not Emmett's food."

"Not Emmett's food," Bella agreed. "I'll go get something ready."

Bella left the room and Edward sat up groggily. He shuffled over to the bathroom and showered quickly. The water pounding into his back made him feel a little more energized. When he emerged into the steam-filled bathroom it was with bright eyes and the knowledge that he needed food in his stomach sometime soon. He was starving. Edward frowned at the dark smudge on the fogged mirror, and reached up to wipe at whatever it was with his towel.

The steam and the darkness were no longer there when he dropped his towel onto the ground to get dressed.

Edward was pulling his sweater over his head as he emerged from his room. He paused, staring at the mirror hanging on the door at the end of the hall. He felt extremely off-put, as if he had been through this before. As if this feeling of his hair standing upright and his spinal cord freezing were echoes of the near past.

The morning when his own image had shocked him, he remembered. And at night... But this time, Edward didn't think that what he had seen was Alice's shadow on the glass. Or anything else he was comfortable having in his home. For a second, Edward laughed a little hysterically, thinking of all the times he had heard another look at his own face, and comfort themselves with meaningless words.

_Vampires don't exist_.

He remembered a young boy staring at him from across the street once so many years ago, telling himself that this world didn't hold anything worth being truly frightened over. Did the world have anything in it for Edward to be scared of? He suspected he would die soon on his own.

After all the only thing that mattered to him was–

Edward raced across the hall and rushed down the stairs, yelling for Bella. The shadow had hung around, but it had never harmed him. Maybe he wasn't in danger after all. But someone was.

* * *

There was knocking at the door.

Bella wiped her hands on a tea towel and hung it from the oven handle. She wondered who would be at the Cullens– who could even _find_ their way here, and who would have the courtesy to knock if they _did_ know the Cullens.

She was surprised, when she opened the front door, to see Jacob.

"Jake!" Bella hesitated briefly, but quickly enveloped Jake in a hug. "Where on earth have you been?" she demanded, scolding him. "You've had everyone so worried, Jake!"

"I know, Bella. I just–" Jake grimaced and shoved his hands in his pockets. "Bella..."

Bella pulled away, wariness entering her gaze. "Jake..." she said in a gently reproving tone. "I'm... Edward's."

"I know," Jake said. "That's the thing. I wanted to come here to say– That is." Jake pursed his lips together, and then suddenly as if a great weight had been lifted from his chest, he smiled broadly. "Bella... Our friendship's been strained at times, but, I want you to know..." He closed his eyes and breathed deeply through his nose.

Suddenly Jacob froze, eyes flying open.

"That scent," he gasped. "I've encountered it before– Seattle... Bella, we've got to leave. Now!"

"What?" Bella asked, flustered and caught by surprise. "But– Edward!"

She heard Edward yell for her upstairs.

"Bella? Be–"

The silence was more terrifying than the most ungodly scream Bella could imagine.

"Bella, leave! I'll go check on Edward."

Jake pushed past her, and Bella was caught between the decision to follow or flee. But there was no chance she could leave, not when Edward was in danger. Bella started after Jake but a hand about her neck stopped her short.

"Not so fast."

The voice next to Bella's ear was feminine and deadly, but not one she recognized.

Jake spun around, distress written over his face. Bella could tell he was disoriented, because he squinted and stumbled, staring hard at the spot where she stood.

"Hmm, I do believe we've met before, dog. You were the one who kept trailing me that day in Seattle, aren't you?"

A crash from upstairs made Bella scream. "Edward!"

The hand tightened around her neck, and she was pulled backward toward a body that felt much smaller than hers.

"I suspect your Edward has left with my mistress by now."

Bella told herself not to twist in this creature's grasp. She knew it would only make her death come faster. Jake's growl rumbled low in his stomach, and he rushed forward. Bella's world exploded in pain as she was flung aside. She was certain her arm was broken, and smelt blood as she cracked her head against the floor. The sound of snarling animals met her ears, and she looked up groggily to see a massive wolf flailing about. There was a blur of movement around him, but Bella's head hurt when she tried to focus on it.

Soon it was apparent that Jake had the same problem. The wolf staggered when he wasn't hit, and swiped in the general direction of a fuzzy wave that swept across Bella's vision like hit. But it was impossible to focus on an enemy you couldn't see. And it was easy to know that Jake was on the losing end of this battle.

Bella closed her eyes and began crawling toward the stairs, praying Edward was still alive. Every yelp she heard from behind her as Jake fought pierced her heart, but she was useless as help. She thought of Edward's green eyes, and his beautiful crooked grin. She thought of the smile, bright and forgiving, Jake had given her just moments before.

Blood spattered on the floor in front of her, mixed with patches of russet fur. It had come to this, Bella thought. He would die fighting this invisible vampire. And Jacob Black had only come to wish her and Edward happiness in their life together.

* * *

I'm loading this chapter a little sooner than expected.. Tangle is practically all written, and there's only a few more updates. I am editing the last chapter (which has been written for about 3 years, no joke!) and then the epilogue!


	24. Chapter 23

**Tangle of Thorns  
**_Chapter 23_

When the door crashed open with a horrible splintering noise, Bella could only be grateful. The silhouettes Bella saw through her blurred vision were still for a brief moment before they leaped forward in a flurry. The vampire may have been talented at hiding, but she was now sorely outnumbered. Jake staggered and collapsed, phasing quickly, his blood spilling across the floor. Without joining the battle, Carlisle rushed to his side. Bella smiled, and touched the floor with her forehead. She wasn't sure that she could continue to sit upright. Gentle, cold hands helped her sit.

"Are you okay?" a familiar voice asked from what seemed like a far away distance.

"...Jasper?..." Bella slumped forward.

"Yes?"

"Edward."

Jasper's gentle hands became a vice grip on her arms.

"What about him? Bella? What about Edward?"

"He was upstairs... Go check." Bella could barely get out her plea, and it sounded slurred and off even to her own ears. Jasper's response made her veins feel like they were tightening themselves about her heart.

"I don't hear a heartbeat. He must have left."

"No, I think he's still up there even if there's no heartbeat," Bella choked out, and her throat burned with the feeling of suppressed sobs.

Jasper had disappeared, and without his support Bella slipped back to the floor, and the sound of a giant flame rushing upward filled her ears, and its light filled her eyes for just a moment. And then there was darkness.

* * *

"She truly loves you, and so you might have made her happy. I came here to kill Bella Swan, but I think this will be much better. How exciting to find out you'd been made human, and so vulnerable. I think no man in a thousand years will suffer as greatly as you."

Edward rolled, recognizing the massive, rotting pine next to him. He was in the woods about 500 meters away from their house. The vampire who accosted him had been hard to see, though her movements were slow. Her voice had been new, so he knew it was no one he had ever encountered before. But Edward knew this voice.

"Jane," he seethed as he sat up. His head was throbbing, and he gritted his teeth together in an effort to stop his brain from exploding with the pain.

"I think the physical torture first," Jane whispered. "Then, when you're too weak to move, the mental. A good plan, yes?"

"I should have done something about you sooner, Jane," Edward muttered.

"Done something about me?" Jane laughed. "What could you have done? I'm a member of the Volturi, and even when you were one of us you were nothing but a pathetic animal-eater in Carlisle Cullen's laughable _coven_."

"Well to start, I might have told Aro about your little deal with Victoria," Edward grunted, and looked up just in time to see Jane's perfect face distort in fury.

"He wouldn't have cared," she said in a voice that had anger roiling beneath a calm pretense.

"Wouldn't he? Aro has always... thought highly of Carlisle. I think you'd be in an awful lot of trouble if he did know."

Jane looked like she was ready to stomp Edward's life out of him. Her face relaxed, and her lips twisted into a falsely saccharine smile.

"It doesn't matter now," she said in a low voice. "Soon, you'll be dead... Or at least, so broken you'll be unable to form thoughts, let alone sentences. But probably dead."

Edward did his best to grin. "What if I've already told Carlisle, Jane? Don't be so stupid, the second my family finds out what you've done, you'll be reported."

Jane screamed in Edward's face, and the sound sent distant birds into flight. "They'll never know! You moron, do you think I would let myself be caught?" Jane breathed deeply and smoothed a wrinkle in her grey dress. "Right now, the idiot woman I've hired is spreading her scent all over your lovely little _home_." Edward felt his heartbeat pick up. _Bella_. Jane seemed to sense his thoughts, as if she, and not him, were the mind reader. "Don't worry. I've told her to keep Bella alive... I want the precious little Swan to see your broken, battered body." Jane smiled viciously. "Before I kill her, anyway."

It was around then when Jane's foot connected with Edward's face.

_Bella, _Edward thought, _I did this. This is my fault. I never should have involved her– why couldn't I just let Bella Swan live without my interference in her life?_

Edward held himself up on all fours, and the lower half of his left arm was crushed beneath the heel of Jane's boot. His vision was filled with blood running down his face and between his eyes. Edward swayed, dizzy with pain and maybe something else. Jane grabbed his hair.

"Oh, Edward," she sighed. "This is going to be _so_ much fun."

She looked into the distance, frowning. "But first, a change of location."

* * *

The back wall of Edward's bed room was nothing but a gaping, ridged hole of glass, smeared on one edge with blood. Jasper leaped out and landed on the ground below, racing into the darkness. Every few feet he could see tiny droplets of dark red among the greens and browns of the forest floor.

Jasper had never quite wished so badly that his own gift would work on himself. How could he concentrate when he was so devastatingly afraid? He could feel the venom in his veins twisting with an electric shock, as if his dead heart were pounding in his veins, coming to life again.

Jasper would die all over again if it meant saving Edward.

* * *

Edward heard pounding in his ears, and at first he thought it was blood. But soon he realized that the pounding was the crash of water on rocks. He blearily looked down and saw that he was dangling over a cliff. They weren't on the beach though, he saw; instead there loomed before them a massive lake.

"Do you know where we are, Edward?" Jane asked. "It's called Cemetery Point cliff... I thought it fitting."

_You've done your research_, Edward wanted to sneer. But after having Jane elbow him in the throat a few moments before, he could hardly breathe, let alone speak.

The worst pain he'd ever experienced overtook Edward, and he writhed, feeling as if flames were licking their way across his spine, mind, and limbs. Jane was right. The mental torture on top of the physical truly was the worst thing that could possibly wrack a person's body.

"Oh, there's our guest," Jane said, and her voice was like molasses, painfully slow. Edward's pulse seemed to move with the cadence of her speech. "Lift your head, Edward, so he can see your face. He needs to know what to tell Bella."

Jane's fingers laced once more through his hair. Edward's eyes filled with blood from his forehead once more, and he saw nothing in front of him. But he did hear a horrendous snarling in the distance.

"Goodbye, Edward Cullen," Jane said, and then because there was a bit of distance between the cliff's bottom and the water, she threw him.

* * *

Jasper rushed forward just as Edward's body disappeared over the ledge.

He was going to tear Jane apart, he would rip her stone cold heart from–

Jasper fell to the ground with a scream, his venom boiling. He writhed, hearing Jane's laughter and Edward's slow heartbeat fading into the distance, drowned by the crashing sound of the waves. Long after Edward's heartbeat could no longer be heard, Jasper screamed. This must be how it felt to be burned alive– if any moment now his skin began to ooze and crackle he would not be surprised.

Jasper told himself there was nothing wrong with his body– it was how he felt, mentally. This physical anguish was actually, in its own way, an emotion. One Jasper didn't want to feel, he told himself. Jasper reached out with his gift, trying to manipulate it as he often could with others. It was like trying to fit a square block in a round hole. He pounded with his empathic power, using a sense of pure calm like a battering ram.

The flames grew higher within him. Jane's laughter and the crashing waves died away beneath his own horrible cries.

Jasper wrinkled his brow, in pain and in concentration, and he tried a new approach. This time Jasper would not try to make his gift touch its beneficiary the way it usually did, but instead– his wave of calm streaked forward, and instead Jasper found the square hole to fit his peg.

The pain died away, leaving him infused with the peace he wanted to be. But Jasper continued to writhe.

"Well, isn't this pathetic," Jane said, her boots crunching on the ground, ever closer to Jasper's head.

When she was standing near enough, Jasper leaped, taking her by surprise, and using his teeth he tore her head from her neck.

Jasper tossed her head over the cliff with animal satisfaction. Below there was a shouting.

Jasper inched closer to the edge, looking over with his hands trembling– he still had Jane's wriggling body in his arms, but he would not excuse that as the reason.

Below were several moving shapes on the beach. Emmett was looking up and waving, while Rosalie set fire to Jane's head. Far to the side he saw Carlisle and Alice bent over what must have been Edward.

Jasper breathed for the first time in many minutes. Methodically, he ripped Jane's body to pieces and tossed them to Emmett.


	25. Chapter 24

**Tangle of Thorns  
**_Chapter 24_

"Three patients in such condition handed at home is a poor idea. Jacob can rest at home... he'll heal. But the other two–" Carlisle shook his head. "I really feel they need hospital attention. Especially Edward... Especially Bella. If they both didn't have other health issues at the moment it wouldn't be so difficult."

"So take Edward to the hospital," Bella mumbled. "I'll be okay, s'just, I think I've broken my arm and hit my head real hard."

"And tell them _what?_" Rosalie demanded, but this time her confrontational attitude was fueled clearly by distress rather than malice.

"Car accident," Bella slurred. She laughed a little, tiredly. "Show them the Volvo."

"That's the plan then," Carlisle decided quickly. "Emmett, Rosalie, get the Volvo out to a bend in the road somewhere nearby and make it look like it's gone off... Jasper, Alice, Esme, help me take these two in. Sam, get Jacob to his father's and I'll be by later to check on him again. Right now I do think he should be fine, since I've set all his bones. Keep his thrashing to a minimum or I'll have to rebreak them."

"Carlisle, wait... Wait... I'd really prefer you just do it here, please," Bella insisted.

"You may have a serious head injury."

"Maybe it's just a concussion?" Esme suggested. "I can stay with her and watch her for a bit. We can decide later if she needs more medical attention."

"Alright, but Edward needs hospital attention."

There was silence. No one would argue with that.

* * *

Jasper and Alice pulled up to the emergency room and rushed inside. They didn't want to attempt carrying him. Getting him into the car had been a four person job. A stretcher was quickly brought out as Alice 'tearfully' told of the way Edward and Bella's car had crashed not far from their home. Bella was well enough to call on Edward's phone, but Edward obviously, was not.

The atmosphere in the waiting room was somber as Edward was wheeled into emergency surgery.

"I'm sure he'll be okay," Alice told Jasper tersely, gripping his wrist.

Jasper smiled tightly. "Something's bothering me... Why is it _always_ Edward?"

* * *

"You've gotta stay awake, Bella," Emmett said, poking her side.

She sat up a little straighter. "Sorry, I'm really tired."

"Yeah, I know." Emmett's voice was gentle. He and Rosalie had been delegated the Bella-watching duties after Esme and Carlisle left for the hospital. Rosalie currently was on her knees scrubbing the floor and clearing away broken glass. When the room didn't look like a disaster area, she would call Charlie to come over. "But until Carlisle gives you the all clear you've gotta stay. He says it doesn't sound or smell like there's internal bleeding, so I suspect you'll be good to go in a few hours."

Emmett frowned as Bella nodded.

"Bella... what did Carlisle mean when he said you both had prior medical issues? I know Edward's been sick, but... are you alright?"

"I'm fine, Emmett. My prior medical condition is over now anyway," Bella said bitterly. In a whisper she continued, "It's why I didn't want to go to the hospital. Because they'd look me over, and Carlisle would insist they check, and everyone would know–"

"...Bella?"

Her breath hitched, and she looked up with glassy eyes. Bella sniffled, and raised her chin.

"I had a miscarriage last month."

Emmett heard glass crashing and turned to see Rosalie standing in the doorway, her face aghast.

Bella began to sob and he looked frantically between the two women, completely unsure of what course to take.

Rosalie moved and sat gingerly next to Bella on the sofa. She hesitated, and wrapped her arms around the shaking girl, and Emmett knew that it was his turn to clean. He left the room without looking back, understanding that this wasn't a moment meant for anyone's eyes.

* * *

"How's Bella?" Alice asked when Esme and Carlisle arrived at the hospital. Carlisle quickly disappeared into the surgery room. Technically it wasn't allowed, but no one stopped him.

"She seems okay. Carlisle says it doesn't look like there's internal bleeding. He put her arm in a sling. She'll have to get it cast later, probably."

Alice nodded, and they waited. And they waited.

Could a few hours really be so bad? Alice continued to glance frantically at the clock. She had experienced worse, hadn't she? After all, she'd waited so long for Jasper to come to her.

* * *

"I didn't tell him," Bella confided in Rosalie. "I mean, I'd only just found out on the day of my birthday. And everything was so rocky, you know? He still wasn't doing well, health-wise. And I didn't want to stress him out anymore... And I worried sometimes. He didn't seem... happy. As a human, I mean. What if he didn't _want _us to have a family?"

"I'm sure he did, Bella," Rosalie murmured in her ear. "You shouldn't have worried about that. Is this why you smashed the Volvo?"

Bella nodded, and struggled to speak through her sobs. "I was so mad at him... for not knowing... for not _sensing_ what we'd lost."

"How far along were you?"

"Oh, I don't know. I mean... I think I missed my period in August, the week I was sick. The only way to know is to ask Carlisle, I guess, since it's when I was sick–" Bella sat up straight suddenly. "Edward was still... one of you."

"What?"

"When I got pregnant, Edward was still one of you."

"Not possible," Rosalie said firmly.

"But.. It is," Bella continued, her voice filled with wonder. "I mean– Obviously, your experience so far suggests that you can't, except that... Of course you couldn't conceive a child, Rosalie, because you're frozen in the state in which you passed from human to inhuman. Totally unchanging. And human women's bodies have to _change _to bear children. The constant change of a monthly cycle for one thing, and then the bigger changes needed to accommodate a growing child. _Your _body couldn't change.

"But mine could. Mine did." Bella gained speed and volume as she spoke.

"And human men—well, they pretty much stay the same from puberty to death, right? Charlie Chaplin was in his seventies when he fathered his youngest child. Men had no such thing as child-bearing years or cycles of fertility."

"Of course, how would anyone know if vampire men could father children, when their partners were not able?" Rosalie ventured eventually, slowly. "What vampire on earth would have the restraint necessary to test the theory with a human woman? Or the inclination?"

"I can think of only one," Bella said confidently. They sat in heavy silence for a while, Bella's heart pounding and Rosalie's sitting like a pile of unmelting ice.

"But, Bella," Rosalie whispered, sounding as weary and tired as one could. "It _isn't _possible... Even if you can conceive..."

"I did!"

"Okay, so you did conceive. But a human woman _can't_ bear a vampire's child. If your body could support the hyrbid you created... you wouldn't have miscarried."

Bella looked away, pouting.

"It doesn't matter," Rosalie said gently. "Bella, it doesn't matter at all. Edward isn't a vampire, and there'll be more chances for you in the future."

How nice it must be, Rosalie thought, to have something to look forward in the future.

* * *

"He'll be okay," Peter Gerandy told them as he and Carlisle emerged from the surgery room. Jasper sagged in relief. "It looked close for awhile there, but he'll be ready to leave in two-three weeks... He has a broken arm, broken cheekbones and a broken shoulder blade. The arm injuries particularly nasty. He must really have been thrown from that vehicle," Gerandy commented to Carlisle. "Some of those injuries were from heavy blunt force impact."

Carlisle nodded. "Yeah. Yes, he was thrown quite a distance. But... it's over now."

* * *

It was 1 am, and Edward had grown weary of hospital life. Or maybe just life in general. He was being discharged, hopefully, the day after tomorrow.

But he thought of the pain he'd caused his family, and the way Bella looked like she might drop dead from exhaustion every time she came in to visit him, and Goddamnit, did no one but him see what he'd done just by living in Forks among those he cared about?

Edward sat up and slipped into the shoes sitting by the door. He'd been left clothes, but could only wear pants so far. His arm cast prevented him from putting on shirts.

Edward didn't care if he was being discharged some other day. He was leaving _now_.

* * *

"He can't be gone!" Bella screamed at no one in particular.

"Bella, it's been days, and no one's seen any sign of him," Charlie tried reasoning.

His daughter glared at him, and Charlie swallowed. He was the Chief of Police, and it was _his _job to search for missing persons during the initial case work. And he had searched. Charlie had searched harder for Edward Cullen than he ever had for another. But there were no signs of him. No stolen cars. No credit card transactions. No witness phone ins.

Nothing. And more than nothing. Rather than leaving things as they'd been, it was like Edward had dug a hole and hid himself in it.

His credit cards were canceled and when the company checked they'd found their system had been hacked and all traces of Edward's accounts erased. His bank accounts were hidden so deeply beneath paper trails that there was no way for Charlie to track them down, even with the full cooperation of the bank. Hell, even his school records had been discovered to have been tampered with.

It was as if Edward Cullen had simply never existed.

* * *

"But he _did _exist," Bella whispered, staring at her hands in her lap.

"I _know!_" Alice shrieked angrily, her voice like a harpy's. "You think I don't _know _that my brother existed_?_ I'm just fucking saying that's what he's made it look like!"

"Alice..." Esme began reprovingly, but quickly fell into staring out the window as she had been for days.

Bella watched her hands shake, as someone else's tiny hands came into her vision. Alice pressed her fingers into the back of Bella's palms.

"I'm sorry, Bella," she whispered. "I'm just upset. I can't– I can't see him."

"Not ever?" Bella asked, and she had to look up for the response, because Alice didn't say a word, only shook her head.

"Well, we can't just sit around, we have to look harder!" Emmett insisted.

There was quick agreement from all the women in the room. Carlisle remained silent and pensive beside Bella, and Jasper was shaking his head slowly.

"No... If Edward left it was because..." He shrugged, curling into a ball on the arm chair.

Bella suddenly felt her despair increase ten fold. "Jasper," she muttered weakly.

"Sorry," he mumbled. "I can't help it. Everyone's stress is feeding mine and I'm feeding theirs and it's just– Well."

Bella nodded. "Yeah."

"Jasper's right, though." It was Carlisle.

"What do you mean?" Rosalie asked in a tiny voice.

"He doesn't _want_ to be found... He's thrown off the humans by burning his paper trails and he's thrown off Alice by purposefully _not_ making plans. I think it should be clear by now that Edward has gone on to something else."

Immediately protestations came from every corner of the room, but Carlisle held up his hand and silence came among them like a ghost.

"Edward left for a reason," he said again, more firmly. "And, truth be told, I don't think it was a sudden decision... The first time I noticed one of his credit card's being deactivated was more than a week before the accident."

"What? No. Why... why would Edward do that?"

"Bella, I know this is difficult, but you need to consider– as we _all_ do– that this is Edward's choice. Life won't be the same without that. I know that... He was the first member of my new family, remember? But, even so, even after losing Edward... We are _still_ a family." Bella blinked through her tears, and something in Carlisle's voice made her heart slow and her mind still. Perhaps, if he didn't realize it, if he didn't use it, Carlisle did have a supernatural gift. Bella smiled a little. Being a super dad probably couldn't be considered a 'gift.'

But maybe having the power to really speak to people could be.

"Edward will always be a part of our family, even when he's gone," Carlisle continued. "And I would never disrespect someone I cared about by treating such a big decision like it's _wrong_, no matter how much it hurts. Edward needs to think about where his own life is headed, not ours."

"But... it's not going _anywhere_ without him," Bella muttered.

"Bella. Part of loving someone is– Well, maybe this isn't what's best for _us_. Maybe things will never be as good as they once were. But perhaps it's what's best for Edward. Perhaps he's just not meant to share his life with us."

Bella cried, but she nodded as she did. Bella knew she would never be meant to have happiness without Edward. But perhaps he could without her.

"You'll leave?" she asked.

"Yes," Carlisle told her. "We can't stay here, after we've been for so long. And I do believe a change of scenery might do some good."

"But– Bella," Alice said. "We'll keep in touch, yeah?"

Bella thought of receiving letters with Alice's perfect scrawl, so similar to Edward's own. It might tear her apart–

"Yes, Alice. Of course we will."

* * *

Life. It could be taken away so easily, Bella thought later, looking at the Sun hanging in the sky. She was starting her first semester at the University of Florida in January. She hadn't spoken to the Cullens in over a month, since the end of November.

Life could be ripped away from under you before you realized what was happening. It stole away in the middle of the night as if it had never existed sometimes. And hers had.

Then again, Bella thought, touching her stomach gently. Maybe not.


	26. Chapter 25

****

Tangle of Thorns

_Chapter 25_

She was young, and she'd made mistakes.

It had been her second year of University. Her first year she'd been so busy, expecting child, studying hard, getting used to life without Edward, there'd been no time for anything like that. But next year, next year had been different. There'd been a long list of guys, most of them like him, one way or another. Josh, who played piano. Reggie, whose eyes were bright green and who displayed animal-like agression in bed. Edward, who really was in no way compatible with Bella except that it meant she could whisper that name when they made love.

Bella didn't know why she'd denied her longing to go to Jake for so long. She supposed she just hadn't been ready. When she finally was, he was there, waiting, with open arms. And for awhile, it had been... great. Fantastic. Jake wasn't everything she needed- only Edward could supply that- but he was pretty damn close. Henry had loved him, too- he'd been the father she supposed her little boy would never have.

Then _she_ showed up.

He was drawn to her, Patricia. She was his gravity. His soulmate. She really was his destiny, unlike Bella, who was just... that girl. The best friend he couldn't stay with. Sam's Leah.

Only Bella was different from Leah. She wasn't angry. She understood. All the knowledge had already been hers when it happened. They'd both known there was a possibility that day would come, and she couldn't blame Jacob.

Besides, he wasn't gone. He was still her best friend. But he did have someone else to go home to, and Bella respected that. She didn't want to interfere with his new relationship. It also made it easier for her if there was some distance between them, if she didn't see him all the time and have to miss him all over again, though she would never confess it out loud. And she had Henry anyways. The best part of her life.

The only part of her life, she admitted. The only thing that mattered. The one thing Edward had left her those four years ago, and her one tie to him.

* * *

_Bella,_ the letter dated Jul 17, 2009 said.

_We love it here in Bristol. It doesn't rain quite as much, so we're a little more isolated, but there's a sort of old town charm in..._

_...The pictures of Henry were truly adorable! We love getting them. It's so sad that we can't really introduce ourselves to him. Maybe when he's old enough to understand the importance of keeping secrets! Rosalie and I went clothes shopping again. I know you hate it, but Rose can't walk past a children's clothes store now without stepping in. Anyway, we did keep the purchases to a minimum this time, I think you'll like some of..._

_... Jasper has enclosed some pictures of Edward. He's been meaning to for a while, I think, but you know how hard it is for him to give them up. He always insists that copies aren't the same as the original proofs (whatever). I think he just hates handing away the copies that Edward would have seen himself. He helped Jasper frame some of them. Anyway, there's also a painting of Henry by Emmett. I know, dear God, right? But he's in art school again, so he has to, and he thought that instead of his usual junk, he'd make something someone can appreciate..._

_...Bella, we miss you..._

_...I hope..._

_...How's life?..._

_...Love always, Alice._

_

* * *

_

He could see the disease as it moved- disease being an operative word. Everyone could see it, though he tried to hide it. He kept to himself as much as he could, every extra person he saw, every new face an added stress, another person who was going to live their full life while he wished desperately for an extra few months. For one more chance to go see Bella. One more day to think of her. One more moment where he fantasized about her laughter, her voice, her pout that was so childish even though she was so mature, so grown up for someone her age.

Of course, Edward reminded himself, Bella wasn't nineteen anymore. She was... how old? He counted the years in his mind, thinking sadly of every birthday he'd missed, every Christmas that had passed without her. Every Valentine's Day he spent wishing she was in his arms.

Edward moved away from Chicago for two reasons: one, there were health issues. His eyes were weak, and the sun pierced them viciously when he went outside. He burned easily. He needed to be someplace with very little light, and to be far away from Chicago and everything it meant for him. (Drugs. Drugs every night, every fucking night, every day, ingested, injected, smoked.)

Two, he needed to be someplace where he could easily go see Bella; driving for days to catch a three second glimpse of her was getting ridiculous, and he knew that it was taxing on his health.

It wasn't the same as having her, but he was as close as he'd ever get, and he would have to live with it. Edward couldn't have stayed with Bella, couldn't have stayed with his family either. He was dying, and he thought of Bella, clinging to him during his last moments, or Jasper knowing that Edward had wasted away like this and carrying that knowledge with him forever. He didn't want Jasper to carry the image of Edward as he was now– a shriveled, desiccated man– for all of eternity. He didn't want Bella to carry it with her for a hundred years, not even ten.

His only comfort- ironically the same as his biggest fear- was the fact that soon, very soon, he wouldn't have to worry about things like that anymore, about what he would do next with his life. It was almost over now.

_

* * *

_

_Alice,_

_Please say thank you to Jasper for me. And to Emmett, the painting is lovely... Sue and Charlie saw it and it was quickly stolen from my possession. It's hanging in their living room. If he ever has to paint again, tell Emmett I'm paintingless because of those thieves..._

_...The clothes are cute, Alice, but he'll never wear all this stuff you send! Angela laughs at me because I bring him to daycare in a different outfit every day..._

_...Things are boring, as always. Being a loan officer isn't quite so fun as I'd hoped once. But, at least I have a job, eh?..._

_...Henry is learning his letters. He's so smart, it blows me away. Charlie and Renee said I didn't learn half so quickly as him, and not nearly so soon. I blame Edward, of course..._

_...Life isn't the same without all of you around..._

_...With love, Bella._

_

* * *

_

The rain lashed mercilessly at the windshield, and the only light came from Bella's headlights. The moon was hidden somewhere behind the clouds, above her head, somewhere she couldn't reach. The music pouring out of her stereo speakers was quiet, so much that she almost couldn't hear the classical music station over the rain. But she didn't dare turn it up. Bella didn't want to wake him.

She glanced in her mirror, and her heart swelled with affection at the sight there. Henry was fast asleep, his head slumped to the side. His hair- a strange mix of red, brown and blond that was only too familiar to Bella- fell in his eyes, closed now, but she knew that beneath his soft eyelids was a vibrant green. The song changed, and Bella reached forward, unthinkingly, to switch it off. She recognized easily the opening chords of Clair de Lune, and felt warmth that had taken her over just moments ago change into a constricting feeling deep in her gut.

Bella was used to this feeling by now. The past eight months of her life had been lonely, almost unbearably so, but she was pushing through it. For Henry. Everything she did was for him. He was her best friend, her companion in life. She liked to convince herself that he was all she needed, but she couldn't deny that the ache she felt wasn't for a friend. Bella's heart cried out for someone who could be there for her as a partner, a lover- someone who could hold her close and comfort her, rather than the other way around.

The worst part was that she knew she wasn't the only one who noticed that absence. Henry was almost hyper aware of the fact that he was different from the other kids. Forks was such a tightly knit town, such a family oriented community. At his daycare, the other kids all had daddies. All but him. And he noticed. Bella remembered the look that had been on his face when Jake showed up to his birthday party three months ago, the happiness, the excitement. Jacob was the closest thing to a father her little boy would ever have. And he had Grandpa, of course. Charlie loved to play with Henry, and always volunteered to baby sit when he could. But it wasn't the same. Bella knew it wasn't. Henry knew it wasn't. At times it felt like every citizen of Forks knew it.

Bella felt tears fogging up her view, and reached up to swipe her arm accross her face. She chose a bad time.

She didn't see the lightning that hit the tree just ahead of her, but she heard the crash of thunder, and she definitely heard the great noise the tree made as it came down. Slamming on the brakes instinctively, Bella didn't even know what happened until after the car had skidded to the side, until after the entire moment was over and she saw the mess of branches and trunk on the ground in front of her.

She looked behind her first, and breathed a sigh of relief. Henry was safe, still asleep in fact.

Then the entirety of the situation hit her, after the first wave of calmness faded.

Just fucking fantastic, she thought bitterly. I'm not even 20 minutes outside Forks, and a tree is in my way.

Renee would be calling Charlie soon, to make sure they got back alright. Bella liked taking a break every now and then, and Henry just loved visiting Grandma, but she thought now that it was probably a bad idea. All these trips seemed to go, in one way or another, horribly wrong. This was so typical of her, to let her cell phone battery run down, thinking, it's okay, we're almost home anyways, what will happen?

But it was her, and therefore, just her luck. They were trapped, right outside of town.

Bella breathed deep, wondering what in hell she was going to do. Then she thought of it. Sighing in relief, but stiffening in fear and nervousness at the same time, she backed the car slowly up, and turned around.

Could she do this? she wondered. Was she ready for it?

Of course she could, and she would. Henry couldn't sleep in the damn car all night, he'd be completely sore. He really should have a warm bed, some clean jammies. She was determined to do this, the way she said she would. She'd give Henry what he needed, no matter what the cost to her.

Bella almost missed the turn off. It was dark, and storming, but something kicked in just when she got there. Like her heart had a map written across it. She pulled in at the end of the long driveway, not bothering to try and get in the garage. Bella grabbed her carry on bag first, and Henry's, glad she'd packed him some spare things in case they got held up at the airport. She dumped them out of the rain, on the porch, and went back for him. She fumbled with the doorknob, Henry awkward and heavy in her arms, and finally got it open. Kicking their bags inside, Bella took a few steps in and sighed in relief at the wave of heat. She realized she was a little shocked that the place was still heated, and froze in horror. Bella knew the Cullens had sold the house, insisting that they would never be able to return to Forks and all the memories it held, and she knew that the man who'd bought it had sold it again at a profit. But as far as anyone in town knew, the person who'd bought it had never moved in. The home was empty. Or supposed to be.

But Bella saw that almost nothing of the room had changed, so surely it was abandoned as she'd heard- but then, tilting her head to the side, she realized that it was smaller. To the large, open space on the bottom floor, someone had added three tiny extra rooms to the right wall.

The door shut behind her with a quiet click, and she laid Henry gently down on the nearest sofa. She straightened and looked around the familiar room, her heart heavy. The mechanical metal wall had been raised to cover the glass wall that was the entirery of the house's back side.

Aside from the renovations on the side, things were the same, except... where was the piano? The beautiful grand was gone, and it hit Bella hard. It was one of the few items that had ever connected them. They were so together, on their own, the material world had never mattered. But this- this absence hurt, made Bella even more conscious of the hole in her life. Bella wanderd over to see what was beyond the four doors. Behind the first was a decent sized kitchen, which Bella noted with interest had a glass wall along _two_ sides, rather than only one. Like the large wall covering the back of the house, this tinier one in the kitchen also had the metal coverings up.

Bella went to check the second door and grew utterly still as she heard a sound somewhere upstairs.

It's the wind, Bella, she told herself angrily. This is ridiculous. Don't act this way over a house. An empty house. Empty empty.

She repeated the word in her mind, willing it to be true. She remembered finally finding the meadow, finally finding the magic she'd missed. And finding it to bring her nothing but danger. But that couldn't happen here. If there was a vampire in this house, particularly a violent one, she'd be dead by now. Henry would be dead by now.

But maybe it wasn't a vampire. If someone was squatting here...

For her son's safety, Bella thought, maybe she should check. Or maybe she should just assume, and go... Go all the way back to the nearest hotel.

Bella sighed and crept silently up the winding staircase. Her breathing was even, surprisingly, as if she was simply moving through the house, inspecting. Actually, Bella was gripped with fear. It wasn't the situation, she knew. It was the place, the memories.

She rounded a corner, slowly, and froze. A dark figure bent down not twenty feet from her, picking up a tiny book from the floor. The lights in the hallway were off, and Bella could hardly see a thing. Outside the wind howled. The rain pounded relentlessly.

And a cloud shifted, ever so slightly, to let the moonlight in through a window next to the person with her.

She saw only a tiny flash of bronze, but that was all she needed. She recognized that colour, anywhere, and when she flung hersef against him, heard the shocked yelp, she knew she hadn't made a mistake. Because she knew the voice. And the smell. And those arms, the feel that she molded perfectly against this chest.

Bella knew she was right.

Right where she belonged.


	27. Chapter 26

The last chapter! ~cry~ edward and Bella obviously still have a zillion and one issues, but I thought it'd be best to end here. Epilogue still to come (complete with Jasper!)... and a slightly better explanation of the thing you will probably all be wondering about at the end of this.

**Tangle of Thorns  
**_Chapter 26_

"Edward, oh, Edward, you're here, I love you, I've missed you, I– Edward?"

Edward had pushed Bella roughly away from him, looked away from her now, so she could only see one side of his face.

"Bella," he rasped, his voice sounding rough and tired. "You have to go."

"What? No, Edward, I– I can't. Please, I need you."

"No," Edward whispered. "You don't need me. I'll only make you miserable."

Bella wrinkled up her brow, unable to understand. She swallowed, and touched his arm gently. Edward flinched immediately away from her caress.

"I– There's someone I'd like you to meet," Bella murmured quietly. "He's out in the front room."

Edward sighed bitterly. "He?"

"Yes, come."

Bella took Edward's hand and began leading him to where she'd left Henry. He stayed behind her with his face turned away from her all the while.

"There's no one here," he mumbled.

"On the sofa," Bella murmured.

Edward stepped closer, leaning over the sofa. Bella knew the moment when he understood what he was seeing because his muscles tensed and he turned his face quickly, a reflex reaction, she now realized, away from Henry. As if he didn't want the sleeping boy to wake up and see–

Bella swallowed heavily. The left side of Edward's face was home to thick, large, black veins crawling upward from his neck. The same as it had been so long ago, the first time she saw him ill– Bella closed her eyes, and felt a lump forming in her throat. She couldn't bear to think of it, Edward sick, Edward dyi–

"We need someplace to stay tonight," she finally said. "There's a tree on the road."

Edward nodded. "One night."

Henry was tucked into bed in Rosalie and Emmett's room. Bella climbed slowly to Edward's bedroom and found him already in bed.

"Can we talk?"

Edward sighed. "Later? I'm tired."

Bella nodded, hot tears pricking at her eyelids. She crawled into bed next to him and touched his hair gently, relieved when he didn't flinch away from her touch. Bella buried her head into Edward's side, and she cried. She cried until she felt as if she'd emptied herself, and by then Edward was asleep; soon after, she was too.

When Bella awoke, she couldn't lie next to Edward and stare at his half-ravaged face. She couldn't listen to his laboured breathing, because it made her heart's struggle to continue beating that much more difficult. She wandered through the house, touching the walls, the items left behind. In Alice's room she found the white garment bag that held her wedding dress.

Bella hesitated and brought it upstairs. She sat on the edge of the bed, pulled it over her head. In the mirror hanging on Edward's door, she thought that she looked like the most exhausted, unhappy, worn-out bride the world would ever see. Edward rolled over, and his reflection's eyes met hers. Bella stood and flicked the stereo on, turning the volume down as low as she could while still hearing it.

When she turned, Edward was behind her, confusion evident in his eyes. Bella wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her cheek to his.

"I never got my first dance," she whispered, and he responded by slowly putting his arms around her.

"_Follow me down, to the valley below." _Edward sang along with the song- not the type of song she'd ever pictured her first dance to go to. His breath whispered against her ear. "_You know, moonlight is bleedin' from out of your soul..."_

This wasn't exactly the way Bella had pictured her first dance, in her beautiful wedding gown. Perhaps it was enough.

* * *

"I missed you," Bella told him, voice wretched. They lay entwined on the bed, Edward rubbing her leg. He trailed his hand across the vast expanse of her silk skirts.

"I've missed you, too, Bella, but surely you see– I couldn't put _this–_" He gestured to himself– "Upon you."

"I wouldn't have minded," Bella sighed. She kissed him, the first they had shared in four years.

He pulled her closer, flipping them over. Edward's hand snaked under Bella's dress as they kissed, and Bella moaned his name into his mouth, more happy than she'd been in years. His sudden desperation reminded her of the very first time he'd ever kissed her, the way she had uncontrollably pulled her closer to him as if she might _die_ if they didn't deepen their kiss–

"Mommy?"

Bella sat up, flushed. In the doorway was Henry, staring at her and Edward with wide eyes.

"I'm hungry," he complained. "And scared. Where are we? Who's he?"

Bella swallowed, and got off the bed. She picked Henry up and turned to Edward. "Is there something in the kitchen I can get him?"

"Yes, of course," Edward responded, head bowed. "I'll help."

* * *

Edward might have meant it when he said one night, but Bella came back a few days later. She came consistently after work, bringing Henry with her. She would cook with the groceries Edward had delivered to the door, and Edward would protest, and she would ignore him pointedly. Those dinners were brutal for Edward.

Edward remembered thinking that Renée and Charlie had forced Bella to grow up too fast. She was in so many ways the parent, taking care of them instead of the other way around. Edward had wanted to be the one who coddled Bella the way he thought her parents should have. He remembered hating it when she wouldn't let him spoil her, and he remembered placing the blame on Charlie and Renée's shoulders.

How _noble_ of him, Edward thought with a sneer, to lord the guilt over her parents all the while bringing this mess down on Bella's head.

_Now what?_ Edward wondered two weeks after she first waltzed back into his life. Leave so she doesn't have to take care of him too, so she doesn't have to watch as he dies slowly? Go away to relieve the burden he placed upon her with his illness... or stay and help with Henry?

He buried his face in his hands, not wanting to watch Bella feed Henry his dinner while she ignored her own hunger, always putting him before herself.

"Oh!" Bella gasped suddenly, and he looked up at her to see her eyes fixed on him. "Are you hungry?" she asked. "I can..."

"No, Bella," he told her quickly, horrified that she was thinking of him when she should have been worried about her own needs. "I'm fine, really."

She ignored him and said, "I'll fix something up for us after I get Henry in bed..." planning already whatever it was she would make, no doubt letting her mind think ahead of grocery shopping and daycare expenses and whatever the hell else it was that Bella had to deal with nowadays. All of the things she was so convinced it was her job to look after.

Probably, Edward realized, he was at the very top of that list.

* * *

Henry didn't like Edward, and he didn't make it a secret. He refused to call Edward by his name, only referring to him as "he." It frustrated Bella, and she spent many nights crying into her pillow, unbelievably angry at Henry, but then angry at herself for feeling that way.

"Why don't you like him?" Bella asked once, and Henry only turned his little face away, pouting angrily. She suspected that part of it was that Henry was frightened of Edward. As Edward grew increasingly more ill, the black veins crept farther along his skin, and his face was truly gruesome. To a child, at least. Bella still saw his crooked smile capable of making her heart shudder, and his gentle green eyes. She felt herself glow whenever he looked at her. She'd been surprised the day Henry asked why Edward looked the way he did, and had haltingly tried to explain to him, at only three years old, an illness she didn't understand herself.

And of course, it didn't help that Edward's home was often very dark and so a scary place for Henry– he never had the mechanical metal wall put down, because, as he told Bella, even the slightest amount of sunlight would give him dreadful sunburn.

The worst part was Edward's reaction. He would appear to take it in stride when Henry was around, or when Bella was looking, but at times when he thought she wasn't, she saw him watching Henry with such heartbroken sadness that it made her stomach churn. 90 years thinking he would never have children, and now he had to watch his own little mirror image treat him like a monster.

Bella worked as a loan officer, a job she'd never expected to find herself in– but it paid the bills and the schooling had been easy enough. The hours were good, too, perfect for a single mother. There were no late nights, at least, not ones that she couldn't spend at home. Bella had only been working a year, and she'd never been called into the office after her usual hours.

The first time she encountered this, she was with Edward, preparing dinner for the three of them while Henry watched cartoons in the next room.

"Um, could you watch Henry for... an hour?" she asked, and then added, "Oh, God, nevermind, I'll ask Dad."

"It's alright, Bella," Edward assured her. "I'm... feeling okay tonight."

This was rare, and it was impossible for Bella _not_ to notice Edward's failing health. He barely ate, she'd learned that he'd taken to sleeping during the day when she was at work and Henry was at daycare, and most worrisome of all was the fact that he'd moved his bedroom into one of the tiny side rooms on the lower floor, so that he'd never have to climb the stairs again.

"Henry, be good," she called on her way out the door. Henry glared at her for leaving him with Edward. He glared at Edward. Bella winced, determined to be back as soon as possible.

* * *

When Bella returned, music was drifting in from one of the side rooms.

She heard Henry's tiny voice. "Can you teach me?"

"Of course," Edward answered. "But you won't be able to play a whole song at first."

Bella shut the door behind her. Henry must have heard, because he quickly appeared.

"Mommy, hi, Mommy."

"Hey sweetheart," Bella greeted, and looked questioningly at Edward when he entered behind Henry. "I didn't realize you still had the piano."

Edward grimaced. "I don't– play as well as I used to. My hands are too slow. All of me is. I moved it into the other room. It was... a little depressing having it out here as a reminder every time I came down the stairs."

Bella nodded. Her heart fell dangerously lower in her chest. But she forced herself to smile, because Henry was beaming at her and telling her about music.

* * *

Henry warmed up to Edward slowly. Bella even managed to have them both stay the night at Edward's house without Henry demanding they go home. He loved his piano lessons, though Edward slept so often that they weren't very consistent.

One day as they were driving home after dinner, since Edward had retired immediately to bed, complaining of creaking bones and a pounding headache, Henry asked, "Do sick people die?"

"Why– why would you say that?" Bella asked haltingly. She and Henry had briefly had the 'dying' talk when the old dog Sue and Charlie took in had passed away, but they hadn't quite broached the topic of people.

"He said his mommy and daddy died because they were sick," Henry answered from the backseat, and she knew he was referring to Edward.

Bella swallowed. "Not all the time, Henry. Not when they're just a little bit sick– but, if they're really sick, or they're sick for a long time, then yes, usually people will die."

"Oh," Henry said quietly, and then added, "He's been sick for as long as he's been here."

Bella didn't say anything. She didn't think she could.

* * *

"Hey," Henry said, tugging on Edward's sleeve. He still didn't call Edward by his name, but it was becoming evident that Henry did like him.

"What is it, Henry?"

"Can I help cook?"

Edward was leaning against the counter in the kitchen, trying to convince Bella to let _him_ help. Maybe that was why Henry wanted to, because Edward made it seem 'fun' by repeatedly asking.

"Sure," Bella told Henry. "You can help me make the sauce."

Edward frowned. The three year old could help, but he couldn't. Of course, the three year old wasn't about to collapse from exhaustion. Edward sighed, and took a seat at the table.

"Here, Henry, sit here and you can crush these in this little bowl," Bella said, handing Henry some garlic cloves off handedly. She showed him how to crush them and he set to work methodically, his tongue sticking out in concentration. Edward watched with affection, as Henry ground every last piece in the bag Bella had handed him.

"Okay, Mommy, I'm done, now it goes in the sauce?"

"Uhm, yes, Henry," Bella muttered distractedly, cutting something else. "One minute."

Henry scooted away from the table and tipped his bowl of ground garlic into the sauce pan.

"Oh, Henry, don– Oops, Bella, you might, uh.."

Edward looked at her guiltily, since he hadn't said anything in time to stop Henry from– potentially– doing something that might ruin dinner.

Bella sighed. "Henry, don't go near the oven when I'm not watching... It's alright. How much did he put in?" Bella asked Edward.

"Oh, uh, all of it?"

Bella wrinkled up her nose. "Oh, God, there's only supposed to be one clove."

"I ruined it?" Henry asked with a little pout.

"Um... I'm sure it will be fine, sweetheart," Bella said a little doubtfully. It was by far the worst spaghetti Edward had ever eaten. But Henry watched expectantly, so he and Bella both ate every last bite. Edward felt warm from the inside out even after Henry and Bella had left. Every day, he felt his heart beat a little slower– but every day, Henry looked at him with a little more respect.

It was enough to make 110 long years almost worth it.

* * *

Bella and Henry stopped at Charlie and Sue's on their way back, to wish Sue happy birthday. Henry didn't get to see his grandfather as much now that Edward was around, so they stayed later than Bella had planned. Charlie knew Edward was in town– Henry had let that cat out of the bag long ago, and he watched her warily as she climbed upstairs, excusing herself to the washroom. He worried all the time now, since it was impossible not to tell from Henry's stories that something was seriously wrong with Edward.

She flipped through the photo album with her and Edward's pictures, smiling through tears.

"Mommy?" Henry peered in. "Grandpa and Grandma Sue are making me a snack. They said to leave you alone, but I thought maybe you would want a snack too. What are you looking at, Mommy?"

Henry came over and sat in Bella's lap. Together they looked at the pictures from when Bella was in high school. "Who's that?" he asked, pointing to a picture of Edward with Carlisle and Esme.

"Edward with his mommy and daddy," Bella told him.

"I thought they got sick," Henry said.

"Well, yes. Edward's... um. Edward had two sets of parents, Henry. These people–" She gestured to the photo– "became his parents after his others died."

"He had _two_ mommies and _two_ daddies?" Henry asked with a frown. "That doesn't seem fair," he said quietly. "I don't even have _one_ daddy."

Bella nearly choked.

"Yes– of course you do, Henry. You have a daddy."

"No, I don't. Who?"

Bella wrapped her arms around him, wondering what to say. She didn't know, so finally she placed her finger gently on the photo of Edward smiling up at them.

"_He's_ not my daddy," Henry argued. "I don't want him to be."

"You don't get to choose," Bella snapped impatiently, and then she hugged him again, feeling guilty. She fought against the tears in her eyes. "What's wrong with _him_?" she asked. "He's Mommy's friend. He's perfect."

"But," Henry said. "He's sick. Will I get a new daddy like he did?"

Bella squeezed her eyes shut. "No, Henry, it's not quite that easy."

"Well, I don't want a sick daddy."

Bella nodded tiredly. "Go get your snack."

Henry left the room without another word. Bella stroked the photo of Edward's perfect, unmarred face, and she wondered why her life had turned out to be so difficult.

* * *

"Edward?" Bella called the next afternoon as she stepped into his house. Henry sulked beside her.

"Hey, Bella," came Edward's unexpectedly cheery voice.

He came out from the piano room, smiling widely at the two of them.

"Oh, you sound... good," she murmured as he pulled her into a fast embrace.

"I feel good," he said, "Better than I have in _months_, actually. Hello, Henry, how are you doing?"

"Are you good enough to teach me?" Henry asked.

"Sure thing," Edward responded.

Bella watched them go, bewildered. Edward stood taller, straighter, and she almost thought the veins on his face had retreated, just a little.

Bella watched Edward closely for days, studying his movements. When she reached up to cup his face with her hand, she was certain that her fingers didn't reach as far along the dark tendrils as they used to. For a perilous week she felt her hope returning as Edward found himself well enough each day to give Henry more piano lessons, and when she came to his house at night to find dinner half-cooked already, Edward there with a smile full of energy on his face.

Edward's burst of wellness faded fast toward the end of the week. She struggled to understand what had brought it on, not wanting to give in to her most ludicrous theory because– well, it was partially offensive, to Edward and to the rest of his family.

Still, there was no sense in letting Edward waste away when she had a chance, right?

* * *

"Mommy, what's _in_ this?" Henry asked as he ate, frowning and missing his mouth with his fork as he looked at her.

"Spices," Bella answered shortly. She had added many to cover up the flavour of five times as much garlic as one might normally use.

Personally, Bella thought it tasted good, but she supposed it might be a bit too flavourful for the palette of a three-year-old. It didn't matter. Bella didn't care how it tasted to anyone, only how it would make Edward feel in the morning.

* * *

"Edward? Hello? Hey, Edward!"

"In here," came Edward's voice from upstairs.

"Very helpful," Bella muttered with a roll of her eyes. In where?

Henry raced past her into a side room and as she climbed the stairs with her grocery bag in hand, she heard the plink plink of piano keys being pressed out of time.

She found Edward in the bathroom, shaving the scruff that she had been slowly getting used to since he moved his bed downstairs.

"I should have thought to bring my shaving things down when I had the bed moved," he told her with a grin. She stood behind him and stared his expression in the eyes with a smirk.

"Or you could have bought a new razor, just as easy."

Edward shrugged. "It doesn't matter anymore."

Bella cleared her throat. "About that. You're, uh, feeling better?"

Edward chuckled. "Yes, Bella. I can't claim to know why, but–" He shrugged– "Perhaps it's a Christmas miracle."

Bella laughed herself at that. "Okay, first of all, Christmas was four months ago. Second... I, uh, think I may have a theory."

"What's that?"

"Well, I may have been playing around with your food for, um, a month."

"What do you mean?"

"I've added a secret ingredient to some of our meals," Bella hedged. "And I think if you eat it more often, you'll– I mean, I'm sure it's not a _cure_, but it certainly seems a decent treatment."

Edward set down his razor and turned around so they were face to face, rather than looking at each other through the mirror.

"Are you going to tell me what this 'secret ingredient' is?" he asked with a hint of laughter. Bella thought he likely didn't believe her theory as much as she did. Well, maybe that would change.

With a sigh, Bella reached into her grocery bag. She pulled out a string of garlic and placed it on the counter between them.

Edward stared at it. And then at her.

For a long time the tiny room was filled with a silence so awkward Bella thought she might scream. Then, Edward smiled, or almost did, because she thought it looked like he was fighting it down.

"Garlic," he finally said.

"Er. Yeah."

"Are you sure you're not actually trying to kill me?"

Bella blinked, staring into Edward's face with wide, shocked eyes. In return, he smiled and wrapped his arms around her.

"Garlic," he said again, disbelievingly. "Well, I think I can live with that."

Bella sighed, cuddling into his chest, heart soaring as she realized that perfection maybe _was_ possible for her. "Hm, I think maybe we all can."

She turned her face up to be kissed, and pulled back the instant she smelled garlic.

"...But you're going to have to brush your teeth before you kiss me," she added.

Okay, so maybe it wasn't perfect. But it was a life.

**The End.**


	28. Epilogue

Here it is, the very end. I might still load a few outtakes- this ending is not the ending that I had in mind when I first started this story, so I'm considering loading the alternate ending somewhere. We will see how things go.

**Tangle of Thorns  
**_Epilogue_

Bella never pictured herself in a situation like this– she remembered arguing with Edward that she'd never be that girl, knocked up by her high school boyfriend and married soon after.

She didn't feel the eyes of everyone in the church on her like she'd always thought she would. She didn't feel anything but overpowering happiness– all she could see was Edward, healthy, smiling Edward and her future, bright and clear ahead of her.

"Mommy!"

Bella looked down at her side to see Henry standing there, gripping the skirt of her gown. In his tiny suit he was a miniature Edward. She raised an eyebrow at him and he stood quietly, though not releasing her dress. When she returned her gaze to Edward's, he wasn't looking at her. Bella followed his gaze to the back of the church– there they were, against the edge of the wall. Bella hadn't heard the four of them come in.

Emmett and Alice both waved excitedly, and Rosalie didn't even seem to notice that Bella was looking at her. She stared, completely enthralled, at Henry. Jasper, of course, had eyes only for Edward.

Bella realized she was being addressed. She turned to the priest, who was finishing up his question. Edward smiled, and Bella felt unbelievably alive.

"I do."

* * *

"He's possibly the cutest thing on this earth!" Rosalie insisted. She gave Henry more chocolate.

Jesus, was Bella _ever_ going to get him into bed tonight? She was sort of hoping, since it was her wedding day and all, that it'd be a nice, relaxing evening. Suddenly this seemed like a very unattainable fantasy.

But she couldn't say no– this was the only time Rosalie would ever get to meet Henry. Her or any of them. Henry didn't quite understand why he'd never before met these people that Bella told him were his aunts and uncles. She knew he wouldn't understand when they left in a few days and he never saw them again.

On the bright side, Henry hadn't argued when Bella explained that they were his relatives because they were Edward's family. It wasn't the same as referring to Edward as something other than _him_, but Bella held out hopefully that the day when that changed was coming soon. After all, when Henry woke up in the mornings, he would raise his arms and expect Edward to carry him downstairs. He came to Edward when he was scared or happy or sad– Henry seemed to expect everything of Edward that a child expected of their father. He just wouldn't _acknowledge_ it. He was as stubborn as his dad. _And his mom_, Edward would have pointed out if he was there.

Bella tilted her head a bit so she could check Emmett's watch. Ugh, this wedding reception was dragging on _forever_. She just wanted to go home.

Bella tried not to sulk, and looked around for Edward, hoping for him to save their son from his sister, since Bella was– well, scared to try it herself.

"Where the hell is– my husband?" Bella grumbled, her tone becoming a little brighter at the end of the sentence, no matter how angry she tried to be.

"I'd like to know where mine is," Alice said quietly, eyes intent on Bella's son. "So... probably together somewhere."

"Up to something!" Emmett added with a cackle.

"They aren't _you_, Emmett," Alice muttered.

Bella watched as Henry allowed Rosalie to hug him and feed him candy. She surveyed the banquet hall and stifled a giggle at the sight of her father dancing with Sue. Charlie was an even worse dancer than Bella. Still, he tried.

"Yeah, they're probably just catching up," Emmett was saying, strangely forlorn at that idea. He was probably hoping that someone would pull an elaborate prank so that he wouldn't have to, since he knew that he'd be in trouble if he tried it himself.

Bella sighed. At least _someone_ was enjoying her husband's company.

* * *

"I missed you," Jasper breathed into his ear.

Edward rested his cheek against Jasper`s shoulder. "I missed you, too," he said, his voice for some reason refusing to rise above a whisper. He sighed, stepping out of Jasper's embrace. "Bella is probably wondering where I am."

"Bella has you for the next hundred years. I have– no you for the next eternity."

Edward allowed himself to be pulled back into his brother's arms. He felt _forever_ stretching ahead of him like an empty, gaping hole that once was so full of vibrancy. Still, he had this moment. And he had something more, something he felt more completely with every beat of his heart.

* * *

Henry was asleep in his grandfather's arms, and Esme was leaning over her husband and the child he held– her heart swelled at the sight... as much at it as at the mirror image of Edward passed out in a similar position with his head on Jasper's shoulder. The last two days had been emotional, moving, for her... but tiring on the humans. Their world of night was too different from the world of day that Edward lived in with his new family. Esme met Carlisle's eyes when he looked up at her, and she saw in his gaze that they were thinking the same thing.

* * *

Bella rolled over in her bed, cuddling into Edward's shoulder. She sighed in contentment when he reached out to touch her stomach gently. She joined his hand with hers, feeling the bump there.

Bella heard the sound of stifled crying. For a moment it was like the long gone echo she used to hear– before she had Henry, when all she could think of was the child that hadn't had a chance at life. But Bella didn't hear the past anymore.

"Henry?" Edward asked tiredly, lifting his head off the pillow. The door creaked open and Henry shuffled into the room, wiping tears from his wide eyes, shining in the moonlight spilling in from the large windows.

"Daddy," Henry whined, climbing onto the bed. Edward's slumped posture immediately became more alert. He flicked on the lamp, and Bella had an easier view of his breathtaking, perfect smile. It was the first time Henry had called him that, and Bella knew it was the thing that Edward had been most wanting for a long time.

"What's wrong?" Edward asked as he helped their son to snuggle down into the blankets between them.

"I had a scary dream," Henry told them haltingly, his words in many cases mispronounced and only half-spoken.

"What of?"

Edward tucked the comforter up under Henry's chin, and Bella watched as he brushed his hand through his hair as he pulled his hands away.

"A scary man who wanted to suck my blood," Henry told them in a tone dripping with horror. Bella's heart froze in her chest as Henry whispered the next words. "A vampire was trying to get me."

Bella's entire body felt cold and clammy, but Edward only leaned down to kiss Henry's forehead, reaching behind his back to shut off the light. He put his fingers against Bella's arm in comfort, and she slowly felt her pulse slow down. Between them Henry was shaking and still sniffling as he clung onto the bedsheets.

Edward slumped down himself, and his breathing evened out within moments, as if he hadn't a care in the world.

"Vampires don't exist," he mumbled into the pillow, and Henry's shaking seemed to abate against Bella's side. "Now go to sleep."


	29. Alternate Ending and Epilogue

**Alternate Ending**

Background information: When I started writing Tangle, the story was very different: like in this version, it focused heavily on Edward's relationship with his family, and especially with his relationship with both Rosalie and Jasper, which this version somewhat touched upon. I started writing Tangle with the utmost certainty that Edward would die. That was a large focus of the original plot, that Edward could never belong to his family once he was changed back to a human, and that he could never belong in Bella's world because of his emotional bonds to his vampiric family. He desperately wants to remain with Jasper and the others for eternity, but he wants at the same time to have the things with Bella he's always dreamed of.

In the original outline of Tangle, Edward doesn't leave. Instead, seeing that Edward needs to be with his family, Bella breaks up with him in the end. She returns the engagement ring he gave her and leaves for University, and when he returns home he finds that his family is gone- they left because they saw that Edward couldn't be happy with Bella as long as they were around, and also because the strain he put on their family with his emotional problems was too much. There was a lot of emphasis on the imagery in Jasper's photography: one of these pictures, the most important one, made it into this version, the one with the dying tree, which in the original version I associated with their family. There was also a plot device by which Edward read Jasper's eight favourite books and I incorporated the themes of those novels into the scenes. The original version was a lot longer than this one, and there are several half-written chapters sitting abandoned on my hard drive. This is the final chapter, which was written pretty much before everything else in the story. Here it is, the alternate ending that assumes everyone has abandoned Edward either to save him or save themselves:

He wandered slowly through the empty house, touching the floors, the sofas, the trim on the walls. He saw his jacket in the closet, but it was the only one there. And in the center of the beautiful, blank room was his piano. This morning he'd seen a painting lying there on top of it. It was gone now. They'd taken everything that wasn't his specifically. His belongings were sitting here and there where he had left them or where they had, in their rush, set them down. Otherwise the house was empty. A white canvas waiting to be painted upon.

He stopped at the entryway to Carlisle's office, saw an object on the desk and moved slowly towards it. It was a portrait, an old one. Black and white faces peered out at him, smiling eternally. He remembered this photo. His was the face in the middle of the three, and on either side Carlisle and Esme were grinning like maniacs. It was one of the few pictures they had ever kept. Rosalie had taken it, on some distant day that Edward could hardly remember...

He could hardly remember anything about his past now. All he knew was his family and Bella. On the back of the photo there was scrawled, "Edward, we'll miss you. Take care. Esme," and next to that Carlisle had written only, "_My son_." He left the picture in Carlisle's office and continued to wander. He realized that his family had, like he had so long ago when he left Bella, made an agreement to leave nothing behind. And each had broken the rule. In Alice's vast, empty closet was a garment bag, holding, he knew, the gown she had designed herself. He had already seen it in her head before the change. He didn't need to open the great white bag. He knew that Bella's wedding dress was inside.

In Rosalie and Emmett's bedroom, there was a necklace. It was a simple silver chain with a diamond on it, and on a metal band circling it was engraved, "_beauty_." It was the only gift he had ever given her, Rosalie. And she had given it back. Next to the necklace there was Little Emmett. He smiled, picturing Emmett standing with a moment's indecision, bear in hand, prepared to leave it but not ready to let go. He picked it up and slowly, he made his way to the final room, clutching it to his chest. It smelled like a brother he would never see again.

He stopped outside Jasper's door, breathing heavy and ragged. He pressed one hand to the wood while the other held the limp bear at his side. He stood. And waited. Waited for the door downstairs to open, and to hear his family declare their minds changed. But it never happened, and hesitantly, he wrapped his fingers around the cold brass knob. He shoved the door open to see the room inside.

It was empty.

It was at this point that he realized something which perhaps he would never have been able to come to terms with otherwise. The room was empty, but it told him more than any thing else in the house could.

They weren't coming back.

* * *

Edward wasn't sure how he'd ended up in his own bedroom, but he was kneeling at his bedside, kneeling like a man praying to his Lord, or perhaps some lost soul offering himself to some heathen God, a sacrifice to the dead. But he was neither of these things. He told himself that he was just a broken little boy with no one in the world to care for. He remembered so many years ago, before Bella Swan, before Jasper and Alice, Emmett and even Rosalie. He remembered nighttime and darkness and the cries of his victims; the open arms ready to accept him when he returned. And he remembered those months when he left her, curling himself into a ball wherever he went, letting the misery take him, and recalled dimly how his family had always been there. He remembered losing his venom. The fear. The weakness. The feeling that he would never be able to call any of them his family again. And how Bella had kissed those fears away.

He thought he knew loneliness then. He didn't.

On his knees, he cried into the matted fur of Emmett's bear, but there was no one to hear him. No one to call on the phone and say, "I see you there Edward. Come home. Talk to me," even when she knew he wouldn't. There was no one to bury her face in his neck and murmur endearments and comforts. No kind faces saying, "welcome home, son" and there was no one to lie next to him in the dark, all night, beside him always even when he was asleep, when he was dead to the world.

So this was it. Edward Cullen had discovered real loneliness.

* * *

He didn't know how many hours he had sat there, but finally he twisted, and his knees came out from under him. His foot flailed out beneath his bed, his other hitting the nightstand as he lowered himself to sit completely upon the ground. Beneath the huge bed, his foot knocked something over. Sniffling a little and setting the teddy lovingly on top of his pillow, he crawled underneath and grabbed what he had kicked out. They were books. Eight books. Jasper's books.

He remembered the whisper, the cool breath on his skin, _"They're my favorites_,_"_and Jasper's silence as he read them in the dark and Edward drifted off to sleep.

Weeks passed, and nothing happened. He hung Rosalie's necklace on the hook that held the garment bag Alice had left behind. And the photo he placed next to the piano. He would sit and try to play but he only ever ended up staring at that photo, willing his parents to step out from within it. To come home. They never did, and he never played again, but for one song. The song he had never named or finished, because no person in the world could play a song so sad. He finished writing it. He played it once. Then he shut the lid on the ivory keys, and he closed the photo in with them. Emmett's bear he carried with him as he wandered aimlessly through the house. He was in a complete daze. He didn't eat. He rarely slept. And when he did try to shove food down his throat, he became nauseous, so nauseous, and he wished that Bella were there.

At times, he would just lie on his bed, not knowing what else to do, staring at the place of the vacant rose. He remembered offering the cold, stonelike flower to Bella, recalled crushing it between his fingers. So, too, had he offered his stone heart, and she had taken it with only a moment's notice. He had always felt so guilty that he had nothing better to give her... But when he finally did, when he had declared his beating, human heart to be hers, had readied to empty it into her hands, she had cast it aside. He thought bitterly, _just like the useless thing it is._

He knew he was sick. Dying. Sooner, rather than later, he was going to starve to death. He picked up the books Jasper had left behind, thumbing slowly through them, clutching Little Emmett to him, still. He began to read. He was usually so fast a reader, but now every page had new creases, places where Jasper had folded them over so he could open to that part whenever he wanted. Desperately he drank in the words at these parts, wondering what it was his brother had seen in them. He picked up The Fountainhead first, and tossed it aside at the end, not caring where it landed or what became of it.

He went through the little pile of books like a madman, flinching and recoiling from the pages as he read _Lolita_, finding that he didn't understand half of what has happening in _The Scarlet Letter_, and that _City of Saints and Madmen_ left him a little bit frightened, making him sleep with the light on, and he acknowledged sadly that _The Picture of Dorian Gray _was right up Jasper's alley, but that it would never be a part of him.

He picked up the last book, wondering numbly what he would do when he had finished. What would become of him when he had come to the end of his final connection with his family. But by the end of the novel that didn't matter, because all he could do was turn back the pages, reread the hero's finale over and over and over. It was a compulsion he couldn't understand until he had stopped and stared hard at the text for time that ran into itself. He knew what this was. It was the starting of something new, an ending crashing headlong into a beginning. And it was all his.

He wanted a finale of his own. One just like this.

* * *

The wind moaned; around him the trees waved frantically, as if pointing him in some direction other than the one he was headed in. He hadn't left the house for weeks, and now he was walking a cold and indifferent 19 miles to LaPush. The rain felt like tears against his skin, though he knew he had no more tears to offer. He would never cry again. The wetness of his cheeks somehow felt strangely right despite all this.

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make any sound?

Edward sang, but he felt as if his voice was an invisible arm reaching out to someone who was too far away. Amidst the sound of the blowing wind and the rushing water somewhere nearby, his voice and heartbeat and soft breath was like the patter of children's feet in the sand. Eventually it would wash away, forgotten by time.

"Share each day with me, each night, each morning... Say you love me."

The wind's moan was the only sound he heard.

* * *

He stood atop those same cliffs that Bella had. He looked into the waters below and remembered being told "_Bella's all into extreme sports these days_." He wondered what she had been thinking as she looked down at the exact same thing he was seeing. He knew she can't have felt how he did now as she readied to make the very leap he was about to. Had Bella known she would be saved? Had she even realized there was any danger?

So much of this, Edward discovered sadly, didn't even matter anymore.

* * *

In a giant, lonely house outside of Forks, Washington, there were books. They were lying around a king sized bed, a cold, made up bed that hadn't been laid in for over a week. No one had entered the house in that time either. On the bed, opened to one of its final pages was Leo Tolstoy's romantic epic _Anna Karenina_.

* * *

"_What did I stop at? That I couldn't find a condition in which life would not be a misery, that we are all created to be miserable, and that we all know it, and all invent means of deceiving each other. And when one sees the truth, what is one to do?"_

* * *

To escape from what worries him. That is why reason is given to man.

* * *

And here's the **epilogue** that went with this final chapter:

Carlisle had told Jasper that under no circumstances would anyone see him again. There were days when Carlisle snipped the end of a length of stitching, smiling dimly at his young patient, and he would remember, so long ago, it seemed, though time had passed on a much greater scale before, the terrifying sound of a hospital monitor about to stop– how different it had seemed from every other dying pulse he'd heard, over so much time.

He remembered the sound of Edward's soft breath in the middle of the night, the pattering rain that seemed to surround them and above all, the heartbeat. Their house was quieter now. How many years had they lived without humans? Decades, centuries. How many years had they lived without Edward? It had been three hundred years before Carlisle found his first companion, his son, the child he'd somehow considered to be his more than anyone else's. It felt like Edward had come to him the moment Carlisle had been born again, and like he'd left him directly after.

Carlisle could remember so much of his time with Edward, but all he could hear now was the rain in some new town, miles away from his first real family member.

When Rosalie found the photo, she didn't know whether to keep it, or to leave it in the garbage where it was. She gently touched the creases, marveling at the picture's beauty, thinking that in so many ways it surpassed her own. Edward's smile was knowing, confident... He looked so harsh, and he shone like an angel in the light. She saw the single bloom on the tree behind him and thought, _how perfect_, because that was Edward.

The single blossom on a lonely tree. Someday the blossom would fade away to become nothing, she supposed, and that tree would stand there for years, hollow and rotten, waiting, perhaps, for a new chance to grow, for a new blossom to protect with its strong branches.

That may have been how nature intended for things to happen, but Rosalie knew that it never would– Their tree was already dying. Every member of their family had left something behind when they'd left Edward; something more substantial than a dress or a teddy bear. It wasn't until so much later that they realized, each and every one of them, that it felt like giving up on the one person you felt you could have saved.

Forks. Washington. United States of America, Earth.

A girl straightens slowly, squinting into the afternoon light that she so rarely sees. When the wind blows she thinks she feels cold hands on her shoulders, and she wonders right then what he's doing, where he is as she's casting her clouded eyes to the heavens. Years later it won't be a girl looking to the sky but a young woman, arms wrapped around her middle as if to hold herself together. Like she's falling apart or something.

A voice calls to her and she turns, turns towards the face which has pulled her all these past years like gravity. He takes note of her arms, the way they tighten against her chest, and he understands. He always knows to leave her to her peace; that sometimes, his arms aren't the ones she needs to feel. They'll never say it out loud, but they both know. She'll watch him as he walks away.

She sees the sun, but she's looking for the moon.

How long had it been?

Time was divided into three categories: Pre-Edward, Post-Edward and simply Edward. Pre-Edward was hazy and dim, and the time of Edward was vivid, bright. Post-Edward was that moment when your eyes are adjusting after coming into the darkness from the light. It was the silence after a crescendo of song, while your ears strain to hear the next chords that you know aren't coming. It was the seconds when you look around you and see the remains of your shattered life scattered about.

It was the end of the world.

He head heard once, _the best way to move on is to acknowledge your losses_. In 10 years, 20 years, 60 years, to stand by his brother's grave and sob his release from the spell he was under. But he would never do either of these things; he couldn't return to Forks, and there are no tears for a vampire to offer.

Another time he'd heard that the best way to move on was to forget. He tried. Decades passed Post-Edward, and gradually he came to walk down the street and he would find that he was no longer shortening his strides to match the only slighter smaller steps of someone who wasn't even there. He heard music and didn't condescendingly compare it to soft, distant piano chords from the past.

And then he would see flashing green eyes across the room and he would start, expecting– He would see a tall, beautiful boy or over a crowd, a head with hair like bronze.

Like cockroaches crawling up from the ruins of the apocalypse, the memories came back.

How could he forget when time was measured in days since Edward? When every heartbeat and soft breath from a human nearby could have been his mind replaying nights from years and years and years ago. When he would kiss Alice's cheek and notice the earrings hanging from her tiny ears, realizing that they had been Masen family heirlooms once.

How could he forget when time itself could not?

2087. Somewhere the rain is falling on a tombstone, and the words slit into its blackened cement are hardly legible in the dim light. _Isabella Marie Black 1987 - 2073_, _whose favorite words in the English language were 'beautiful, loving, loved'_... _and who was all of these things_.

The grave marker next to it reads, _Jacob Black, 1989 - 2076, heart of wolf, always ran with the pack_. And below that; _loving husband, father and brother_.

And only few miles from this place, there are rocks. Rocks along a chilly beach where the wind blows through moss-covered trees. Rocks that you peer at closely in recoil in horror when you understand that they aren't rocks at all. Somewhere amongst these and the sand is a flash of gold and diamond. A band, a circle, a hoop, a song that never ends.

A ring.

It is the final remains of an open wound, one gaping like jaws below red eyes, waiting for blood. It never heals, but it fades a little more every decade as the years forget. It's a wound that never closes, whether you talk about it or you don't...

Because while it's true that people don't always linger in the past, the past always, _always_ lingers on.


End file.
